Henry Bickersteth, 1st Baron Langdale

Henry Bickersteth,
1st Baron Langdale

Henry Bickersteth, 1st Baron Langdale PC KC (born June 18, 1783 in Kirkby Lonsdale , Westmorland , † April 18, 1851 in Tunbridge Wells , Kent ) was a British lawyer who served as Master of the Rolls from 1836 until his death in 1851 held the second highest judicial office in the English legal system and was raised to the nobility as Baron Langdale in 1836 and was thus a member of the House of Lords until his death .

Life

Medic and lawyer

Bickersteth, son of the surgeon Henry Bickerstetnh, after attending the Grammar School of Kirkby Lonsdale between 1798 and 1802, studied medicine at the University of London and the University of Edinburgh and was then since June 22, 1802 as a scholar at Gonville and Caius College at the University of Cambridge . Due to his poor health, he left Cambridge in 1803 and accompanied Edward Harley, 5th Earl of Oxford and Mortimer for two years as a medic on a trip through Italy .

After his return to England, Bickersteth began in 1805 to study law at the University of Cambridge, which he completed in 1808 with a Bachelor of Arts (BA). He then became a fellow there and continued his legal studies, which he also completed in 1811 with a Master of Arts (MA). After he was admitted to the bar ( Inns of Court ) of Inner Temple in 1811 , he began working as a barrister . For his long-time lawyer's services he was in 1827 both the Attorney-General (King's Counsel) as the so-called Bencher appointed the Bar Association of the Inner Temple. He served as legal advisor to the University of Cambridge between 1830 and 1836 and joined the Lincoln's Inn Bar on April 14, 1834 .

Master of the Rolls and Member of the House of Lords

In 1836 Bickersteth succeeded Charles Pepys, 1st Earl of Cottenham as Master of the Rolls and thus as chairman of the civil division of the Court of Appeal. Until his death in 1851 he was the second highest judge in the English legal system after the Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales . At the same time he was appointed Privy Counselor in 1836 . He was succeeded as Master of the Rolls in 1851 by John Romilly .

By a letters patent from January 23, 1836 he was raised as a peer with the title Baron Langdale , of Langdale in the County of Westmorland , in the hereditary nobility and was thus a member of the House of Lords. While part acted to the Upper House it in 1850 as acting speaker of the upper house (Acting Speaker of the House of Lords) and as a member of the Commission for the preservation of the Great State Seal, a post which normally from Lord Keeper ( Lord Keeper of the Great Seal ) is perceived .

In 1850 Baron Langdale refused to accept the office of Lord Chancellor , which had also been held by Charles Pepys, 1st Earl of Cottenham , so that this was taken over by Thomas Wilde, 1st Baron Truro .

Since he died childless, the title of Baron Langdale expired on his death in 1851. After his death he was buried in Temple Church .

literature

• Bickersteth, Henry . In: John Archibald Venn (Ed.): Alumni Cantabrigienses . A Biographical List of All Known Students, Graduates and Holders of Office at the University of Cambridge, from the Earliest Times to 1900. Part 2: From 1752 to 1900 , Volume 1 : Abbey – Challis . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1940, pp. 257 ( venn.lib.cam.ac.uk Textarchiv - Internet Archive ).
• GFR Barker: Bickersteth, Henry, Baron Langdale (1783-1851). In: Henry Colin Gray Matthew, Brian Harrison (Eds.): Oxford Dictionary of National Biography , from the earliest times to the year 2000 (ODNB). Oxford University Press, Oxford 2004, ISBN 0-19-861411-X , ( oxforddnb.com license required ), as of January 2008, accessed May 21, 2014.

Web links

• Henry Bickersteth at Hansard (English)
• Entry in Cracroft's Peerage
• Entry in Leigh Rayment Peerage

Individual evidence

1. ↑ London Gazette . No. 19348, HMSO, London, January 19, 1836, p. 100 ( PDF , English).