DENMAN, THOMAS, 1ST BARON English judge, was born in London, the son of a well-known physician, on July 23, 1779. He was educated at Eton and St. John's college, Cambridge, where he graduated in 1800. He then married, and in 18o6 he was called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn. In a few years he attained a position at the bar second only to that of Brougham and Scarlett (Lord Abinger). He distinguished himself by his eloquent defence of the Luddites; but his most brilliant ,appear ance was as one of the counsel for Queen Caroline, for whom he made a great speech before the Lords which gained him the enmity of the king and retarded his career. At the general election of 1818 he was returned M.P. for Wareham in the Whig interest. In the following year he was returned for Nottingham, for which place he continued to sit till his elevation to the bench in 1832. In 1822 he was appointed common serjeant by the corporation of London. In 183o he was made attorney-general under Lord Grey's administration. Two years later he was made lord chief justice, and in 1834 he was raised to the peerage. As a judge he is most celebrated for his decision in the important privilege case of Stockdale v. Hansard (9 Ad. and El. i. ; 11 Ad. and El. 253), but he was never ranked as a profound lawyer. In 185o he resigned his chief justiceship and retired into private life.
The HON. GEORGE DENMAN (1819-96), his fourth son, was also a distinguished lawyer, and a judge of the Queen's Bench from 1872 till his death in 1896.
See Memoir of Thomas, first Lord Denman, by Sir Joseph Arnould (1873) ; E. Manson, Builders of our Law 0904).