Death of the Chancellor of England.
The celebrated jurist and writer, the Right
Honorable Jno Campbell,
Lord High Chancellor of the United Kingdom of
Great Britain and
Ireland, died very suddenly, in
London, on the 23th of June, from the rapture of a blood vessel.
He was the seventh and youngest child of
the Rev. George Campbell, minister of Cupar, and Magdalen, daughter of
John Hallyberton,
Esq., the head of a family possessing large landed estates in
Forfarshire, Scotland, and was born at
Cupar,
St. Andrews, in the
county of Fife,
Scotland, on the 15th of September, 1781.
His lineage was noble, and could be traced on his father's side to the
Ducal house of
Argyle.
He was educated at St. Andrew's University, commencing at an early age under the tutorship of
the Rev. G. Hill, of St. Mary's College.
At the age of twenty he had already taken the degree of Master of Arts, and entered on the studies of the
English Bar in the office of the celebrated
Mr. Tidd, the majority of whose pupils have attained distinction.
During the period of his probation,
Campbell was employed as a writer of theatrical critiques in the
London Morning Chronicle, then the organ of the great
Chas. Fox and his adherents, and made his mark as a writer of ability in a walk entirely at variance with the dry studies he was assiduously pursuing.
To these efforts he was largely indebted for his means of subsistence and success; and sustained by untiring industry, was called to the bar in the Michaelmas term of 1806.
From that moment he began to rise, although checked in his career by many drawbacks.
His four volumes of Nisi Prius Reports gave him reputation, and upon Lord Eldou's death he succeeded to the position of Counsel to the Crown.
In 1830, he entered the House of Commons, where he was a frequent and admired speaker on the
Whig side in politics.
In 1832 he was made
Solicitor General and then
Attorney General, succeeding
Sir W. Horne, under the
Whig Ministry.
In 1841 he was made Lord Chancellor of
Ireland, on the resignation of Lord Plunket, and with it received a peerage, with the title Lord Campbell of
St. Andrews, County Fife,
Scotland.
His party — the
Whigs — going out of power the same year, he devoted himself to literary labors, having resigned his Chancellorship in September.
It was during the period that elapsed until 1846 that he prepared a considerable portion of his ‘"Lives of the
Lord Chancellors and Keepers of the Great Seal."’ In 1846,when
Sir Robert Peel came into power, Lord Campbell was made
Chancellor of the Duchy of
Lancaster, and in 1850 became the successor of Lord Denmen, as
Lord Chief Justice of the
Court of King's Bench.
When
Palmerston succeeded the
Derby Ministry, Lord Campbell was, at length, made
Lord High Chancellor of the Realm, and held that exalted office with great distinction until the day of his death, having then passed the ripe old age of eighty years.
He died full of honors, leaving a proud title and a noble reputation, as a man of kindly disposition and great intellect, to those who inherit his name and his estates.
Lord Campbell married, in 1821,
Mary Elizabeth Scarlett, daughter of Lord Abinger, and was the father of seven children, three sons and four daughters.
One of his sons represented
Cambridge in Parliament, and another served
England in Bengal, in the army of the late East India Company.
Sir Richard Bethel, who has been raised to the woolsack as the successor of Lord Camp-bell, is a native of
Bradford, and was born in 1800. Graduating at
Oxford, he adopted law as his profession, and was called to the Bar in 1823, and made
Queen's Counsel in 1840. In 1852, when the honor of Knighthood was conferred upon Sir Richard, he was made
Solicitor General in the Ministry of Lord Aberdeen, a position he held until the transfer of
Sir Alexander Cockourn to the Bench, when he became
Attorney General.
Sir Richard Bethel occupied, by general consent, the position of leader of the
English Bar.
