EYRE, SIR JAMES , English judge, was edu cated at Winchester college and at St. John's college, Oxford. He was called to the bar at Gray's Inn in 1755 and was appointed recorder of London in 1763. He was counsel for the plaintiff in the case of Wilkes v. Wood, and made a brilliant speech in con demnation of the execution of general search warrants. He was appointed a judge of the Exchequer in 1772. From June 1792 to January 1793 he was chief commissioner of the Great Seal. In he was made chief justice of the common pleas, and presided over the trials of Horne Tooke, Thomas Crosfield and others, with great ability and impartiality. He died on July a, 1799, and was buried at Ruscombe, Berkshire.
See Howell, State Trials, xix. ; Foss, Lives of the Judges.