JESSEL, SIR GEORGE (1824-1883), English judge, was born in London on Feb. 13,1824. He was the son of Zadok Aaron Jessel, a Jewish coral merchant. George Jessel was educated at a school for Jews at Kew, and at University College, London. He entered as a student at Lincoln's Inn in 1842 and was called to the bar in 1847. He secured a tolerably large practice quickly, but Lord Chancellor Westbury delayed his career by preventing him from becoming Q.C. till 1865. Jessel entered parliament as Liberal member for Dover in 1868, and although neither his intel lect nor his oratory was of a class likely to commend itself to his fellow-members, he attracted Gladstone's attention by two learned speeches on the Bankruptcy Bill which was before the house in 1869, with the result that in 1871 he was appointed solicitor general. His reputation at this time stood high in the chancery courts; on the common law side he was unknown, and on the first occasion upon which he came into the court of Queen's bench to move on behalf of the Crown, there was very nearly a collision between him and the bench.
In 1873 Jessel succeeded Lord Romilly as master of the rolls. From 1873 to 1881 Jessel sat as a judge of first instance in the rolls court, being also a member of the court of appeal. In Novem ber 1874 the first Judicature Act came into effect, and in i881 the Judicature Act of that year made the master of the rolls the ordinary president of the first court of appeal, relieving him of his duties as a judge of first instance. In the court of appeal Jessel presided almost to the day of his death. He sat for the last time on March 16, 1883, and died on March 2 1 .
As a judge of first instance Jessel was a revelation to those accustomed to the proverbial slowness of the chancery courts and of the master of the rolls who preceded him. He disposed of the business before him with rapidity combined with correctness of judgment, and he not only had no arrears himself, but was fre quently able to help other judges to clear their lists. His knowledge of law and equity was wide and accurate, and his memory for cases and command of the principles laid down in them extraordinary.
In the rolls court he never reserved a judgment, not even in the Epping forest case (Commissioners of Sewers v. Glasse, L.R. 19 Eq.; The Times, November 1874), in which the evidence and arguments lasted 2 2 days (15o witnesses being examined in court, while the documents went back to the days of King John), and in the court of appeal he did so only twice, and then in deference to the wishes of his colleagues. Never during the 19th century was the business of any court performed so rapidly, punctually, and satisfactorily as it was when Jessel presided.
Jessel was master of the rolls at a momentous period of legal history. The Judicature Acts, completing the fusion of law and equity, were passed while he was judge of first instance, and were still new to the courts when he died. His knowledge and power of assimilating knowledge of all subjects, his mastery of every branch of law with had to concern himself, as well as of equity, together with his willingness to give effect to the new system, caused it to be said when he died that the success of the Judicature Acts would have been impossible without him. His faults as a judge lay in his disposition to be intolerant of those who endea voured to persist in argument after he had made up his mind but though he was peremptory with the most eminent counsel, young men had no cause to complain of his treatment of them.
Jessel's career marks an epoch on'the bench, owing to the active part taken by him in rendering the Judicature Acts effective, and also because he was the last judge capable of sitting in the House of Commons, a privilege of which he did not avail himself. He was the first Jew who, as solicitor-general, took a share in the execu tive government of his country, the first Jew who was sworn a regular member of the privy council, and the first Jew who took a seat on the judicial bench of Great Britain ; he was also, for many years after being called to the bar, so situated that any one might have driven him from it, because, being a Jew, he was not qualified to be a member of the bar.
See The Times, March 23, 1883 ; E. Manson, Builders of our Law (1904)•