CRESSWELL, SIR CRESSWELL Eng lish judge, was a descendant of an old Northumberland family, and was born at Newcastle in 1794. He was educated at the Charterhouse and at Emmanuel college, Cambridge. He took his degree in 1814, studied at the Middle Temple, and was called to the bar in 1819, joining the northern circuit. In 1837 he entered parliament as Conservative member for Liverpool, and he soon gained a reputation as an acute and learned debater on all con stitutional questions. In January 1842 he was made a judge of the court of common pleas, being knighted at the same time; and this post he occupied for 16 years. When the new court for pro bate, divorce and matrimonial causes was established (1858), Sir Cresswell became its first judge. He died of heart disease, July 29, 1863.
See Foss's Lives of the Judges; E. Manson, Builders of our Law (1904)•