Lyndhurst, JOHN SINGLETON CPLEY, BARON

Lyndhurst, JOHN SINGLETON CPLEY, BARON, thrice Lord Chancellor, was the son of J. S. Copley, R.A. (q.v.), and was born at Boston, Massachusetts, 21st May 1772. At three, with his mother, he followed the painter to London, where, from 1780 till his death, his home was at 25 George Street, Hanover Square; and, after a private education at Chiswick, in 1790 he entered Trinity College, Cambridge. In 1794 he came out second wrangler and second Smith's prizeman, next year got a fellowship, and in 1796 paid a six months' visit to the States, travelling through them with Volney. On his return to England he began to study for the bar, to which, however, he was not called till 1804, when he joined the Midland circuit. He worked assiduously, but success was 'very, very slow' till 1807, and not assured till 1812, when he made a real hit by his ingenious defence of a Luddite rioter. In 1817 he obtained the acquittal of Thistlewood and Dr Watson on their trial for high-treason; but for the next state prosecution, four months afterwards, the government secured him on their side, and in 1818 he entered parliament for a government borough. Henceforward, whatever his former politics, he continued a fairly consistent Tory, and as such his promotion was rapid. In 1819, as Sir John Copley, he became Solicitor-general, in 1824 Attorney-general, and in 1826 Master of the Rolls. When Canning was charged to form a ministry he offered the Great Seal to Copley, who was raised to the Upper House as Baron Lyndhurst; he remained Lord Chancellor under three administrations from 1827 to 1830. At the close of the latter year his Whig opponents made him Chief-baron of the Exchequer, which office he exchanged for the woolsack during Peel's brief administration (1834-35). He next led the opposition in the Upper House to the Melbourne ministry, his annual reviews of the session doing much to reanimate his party and pave the way for its return to power in 1841. He then for the third time became Lord Chancellor, and held the Great Seal till the defeat of the Peel government in 1846. After that time he took little part in home politics, but his voice was often heard on matters of foreign policy. Threatened with blindness for the last fourteen years of his life, he died 12th October 1863, at the great age of ninety-one. Lyndhurst's attainments as a clear-headed lawyer have never been questioned; his judgments—that, for instance, in the great case of Small v. Attwood (1832)—have never been excelled for lucidity, method, and legal acumen. In the House of Peers he had not his equal as a debater. Still, he was not a great statesman, lawgiver, or orator, mainly perhaps through lack of earnestness. His character has been blackened by Lord Campbell (Lives of the Chancellors, vol. viii. 1869), and enlivened by Sir Theodore Martin (Life of Lord Lyndhurst, 1883). For the act that goes by his name, see DECEASED WIFE'S SISTER.