IMPEY, SIR ELIJAH chief justice of Bengal, was born on June 13, 1732, and educated at Westminster with Warren Hastings, who was his intimate friend throughout life. In 1773 he was appointed the first chief justice of the new su preme court at Calcutta, and in 1775 presided at the trial of Nun comar (q.v.) for forgery, with which his name has been chiefly connected in history. His impeachment was unsuccessfully at tempted in the House of Commons in 1787, and he is accused by Macaulay of conspiring with Hastings to commit a judicial murder.
See E. B. Impey, Sir Elijah Impey (1846) ; and Sir James Stephen, The Story of Nuncomar and the Impeachment of Sir Elijah Impey (1885).