Edward Sugden, 1st Baron St Leonards

The Right Honourable The Lord St Leonards PC
Lord Chancellor of Ireland
In office 1835–1835
Monarch	William IV
Prime Minister	Sir Robert Peel, Bt
Preceded by	The Lord Plunket
Succeeded by	The Lord Plunket
In office 1841–1846
Monarch	Victoria
Prime Minister	Sir Robert Peel, Bt
Preceded by	The Lord Campbell
Succeeded by	Maziere Brady
Lord Chancellor of Great Britain
In office 27 February 1852 – 17 December 1852
Monarch	Victoria
Prime Minister	The Earl of Derby
Preceded by	The Lord Truro
Succeeded by	The Lord Cranworth
Personal details
Born	12 February 1781 (1781-02-12)
Died	29 January 1875(1875-01-29) (aged 93)
Nationality	British
Political party	Tory Conservative
Spouse(s)	Winifred Knapp (d. 1861)
Alma mater	None

Edward Burtenshaw Sugden, 1st Baron St Leonards PC (12 February 1781 – 29 January 1875) was a British lawyer, judge and Conservative politician.

Background

St Leonards was the son of a high-class hairdresser and wig-maker in Westminster, London.

Legal and political career

After practicing for some years as a conveyancer, St Leonards was called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn in 1807, having already published his well-known 'Concise and Practical Treatise on the Law of Vendors and Purchasers of Estates'. In 1822 he was made King's Counsel He was returned at different times for various boroughs to the House of Commons, where he made himself prominent by his opposition to the Reform Bill of 1832. He was appointed Solicitor General in 1829. As Solicitor-General he took a narrow view of Jewish emancipation, arguing that "They had possessed nothing; they held nothing. They had no civil rights; they never had any."

In 1834 he was Lord Chancellor of Ireland, and again from 1841 to 1846. In 1849, St leonards published 'A Treatise on the Law of Property as administered in the House of Lords', in which he criticised the decisions given in the House of Lords when acting as a Court of Appeal. In Lord Derby's first government in 1852 be became Lord Chancellor and was raised to the peerage as Baron St Leonards, of Slaugham in the County of Sussex. In this position he devoted himself with energy and vigour to the reform of the law; Lord Derby on his return to power in 1858 again offered him the same office, which from considerations of health he declined. He continued, however, to take an active interest especially in the legal matters that came before the House of Lords, and bestowed his particular attention on the reform of the law of property. He championed the fulfilment of the will of J. M. W. Turner with regard to his art bequests in 1857-70. His view on that was supported by Leolin Price in 2006.

Publications

Lord St Leonards was the author of various important legal publications, many of which have passed through several editions. Besides the treatise on purchasers already mentioned, they include Powers, Cases decided by the House of Lords, Gilbert on Uses, New Real Property Laws and Handybook of Property Law, Misrepresentations in Campbells Lives of Lyndhurst and Brougham, corrected by St Leonards.

Connection to Thames Ditton

Lord St Leonards was popular in Thames Ditton. In 1860 he entertained at Boyle Farm 250 children from the Wandsworth Asylum for female orphans of soldiers killed in the Crimea War. In the 1870s he also made a speech in the House of Lords against a proposal by the Chelsea Waterworks to buy 50 acres (200,000 m²) of meadow in Thames Ditton to build reservoirs. The village rejoiced when the House of Lords threw out the Bill. No doubt St Leonards was spurred on by the damage the Waterworks proposal would have done to his Boyle Farm estate.

Family

Lord St Leonards married Winifred, daughter of John Knapp, in 1808. She died in May 1861, Lord St leonards died at Boyle Farm, Thames Ditton, in January 1875, aged 93, and was succeeded in the barony by his grandson, Edward. After his death his will was missing, but his daughter, Charlotte Sugden, was able to recollect the contents of a most intricate document, and in the action of Sugden v. Lord St Leonards (L.R. 1 P.D. 154) the court accepted her evidence and granted probate of a paper propounded as containing the provisions of the lost will. This decision established the proposition that the contents of a lost will may be proved by secondary evidence, even of a single witness. It is said that Lord St Leonards was in the habit of reading his will every night, that his daughter Charlotte had to listen to it and over some years memorised it and that this became a well known fact in legal circles.

References

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. 
• Dittopedia, the collaborative local history of Thames Ditton

External links

• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Lord St Leonards

Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by Thomas Wallace John Gordon Thomas Buxton Masterton Ure	Member of Parliament for Weymouth and Melcombe Regis 1828 – 1831 With: John Gordon from 1826 Thomas Buxton 1818–1832 Masterton Ure 1813–1832	Succeeded by Richard Weyland John Gordon Thomas Buxton Masterton Ure
Preceded by Sir Codrington Carrington George Grenville Wandisford Pigott	Member of Parliament for St Mawes 1831 – 1832 With: George Grenville Wandisford Pigott	Constituency abolished
Preceded by Sir Charles Dalbiac Thomas Pemberton	Member of Parliament for Ripon 1837 – 1841 With: Thomas Pemberton	Succeeded by Sir George Cockburn Thomas Pemberton
Legal offices
Preceded by Sir Nicholas Tindal	Solicitor General for England and Wales 1829 – 1830	Succeeded by Sir William Horne
Political offices
Preceded by The Lord Plunket	Lord Chancellor of Ireland 1835	Succeeded by The Lord Plunket
Preceded by The Lord Campbell	Lord Chancellor of Ireland 1841 – 1846	Succeeded by Maziere Brady
Preceded by The Lord Truro	Lord Chancellor 1852	Succeeded by The Lord Cranworth
Peerage of the United Kingdom
New creation	Baron St Leonards 1852 – 1875	Succeeded by Edward Sugden