Self-made Nobility.
--There are thirteen eminent Englishmen who have risen to high stations in life from obscurity.
We have the following enumeration:
Lords Eldon and
Stowell--sons of a barge maker and small coal dealer at
Newcastle.--Lord Tenderden--son of a barber at
Canterbury; he received a very poor education, but obtained the means to go to college; while there he enjoyed from a company in the city of
London an exhibition of £3 per year until he took his degree.
Lord Gilford--prior to his being called to the bar, was many years a poor clerk to a solicitor near
Exeter.
Lord Langdale, the master of the rolls, was many years a poor practicing surgeon.
Sir John Williams, one of the judges of the
Queen's bench — son of a very poor horse dealer in
Yorkshire Lord Truc--son of a very poor man in
Cornwall, married a first cousin of Queen Victoria,
Mr. Baron Gurney--his mother kept a small bookstore for pamphlets in a court in the city of
London. Lord Campbell, the present Lord Chancellor, was for many years reporter to the Morning Chronicle.
Lord St. Leonard--son of a barber, and was formerly a clerk.
Chief Justice Saunders, whose precepts to this day form the best text book to pleaders, was a beggar boy, first taken notice of by an attorney, who employed him in his office.
Lord Haneyon--boot black and errand boy. Lord Hardwick--an errand boy.
George Canning — son of a poor strolling player.