LYNDHURST, JOHN SINGLETON COPLEY, BARON (1772-1863), lord chancellor of England, was born at Boston, Massachusetts, on May 21, 1772. He was the son of John Single ton Copley, the painter. He was educated at a private school and Cambridge university, where he was second wrangler and fellow of Trinity. Called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn in 1804, he gained a considerable practice. In 1817 he was one of the counsel for Dr. J. Watson, tried for his share in the Spa Fields riot. On this occasion Copley so distinguished himself as to attract the atten tion of Castlereagh and other Tory leaders, under whose patron age he entered parliament as member for Yarmouth in the Isle of Wight. He afterwards sat for Ashburton, 1818-1826, and for Cambridge university 1826-1827. He was solicitor-general in 1819, attorney-general in 1824, master of the rolls in 1826 and lord chancellor in 1827, with the title of Lord Lyndhurst. Before being taken up by the Tories, Copley was a man of the most advanced views, a republican and Jacobin; and his accession to the Tories excited a good deal of comment, which he bore with the greatest good humour. He gave a brilliant and eloquent but by no means rancorous support to all the reactionary measures of his chief.
As solicitor-general he took a prominent part in the trial of Queen Caroline. To the great Liberal measures which marked the end of the reign of George IV. and the beginning of that of William IV. he gave a vigorous opposition. He was lord chief baron of the exchequer from 1831 to 1834. During the Melbourne administration from 1835 to 1841 he figured conspicuously as an obstructionist in the House of Lords. In these years it was a frequent practice with him, before each prorogation of parlia ment, to entertain the House with a "review of the session," in which he mercilessly attacked the Whig government. His former adversary Lord Brougham, disgusted at his treatment by the Whig leaders, soon became his most powerful ally in opposition; and the two dominated the House of Lords. Throughout all the
Tory governments from 1827 Lyndhurst held the chancellorship (1827-3o and ; and in the Peel Administration (1841 46) he resumed that office for the last time. As Peel never had much confidence in Lyndhurst, the latter did not exert so great an influence in the cabinet as his position and experience entitled him to do. But he continued a loyal member of the party. He died in London on Oct. 12, 1863.
Of Lord Lyndhurst as a judge opinions have differed; there is authority, including Selborne himself, for the view that he was not a just chancery judge. His heart was not in the business. But the qualities of a just chancellor in those days were of a very special order, and in the House of Lords he was more at home, though the estimate must stand that he was "a judge for the parties rather than a judge for the lawyers." His greatest moment in the House of Lords was his success in averting what would have been a disastrous precedent, the attempt of lay members to vote in an appeal to the House of Lords, theoretically permissible, but a violation of a strict Constitutional understanding (O'Con nell's case Sept. 4, 1844). It may be added that the one element of the court of chancery that comes out of Jarndyce v. Jarndyce with any credit is the chancellor—Lyndhurst.
See Lives of the Lord Chancellors of England, vol. viii. (Lords Lyndhurst and Brougham) , by Lord Campbell (1869). Campbell was a personal friend, but a political opponent. Brougham's Memoirs; Greville Memoirs; Life of Lord Lyndhurst (1883) by Sir Theodore Martin; J. B. Atlay, The Victorian Chancellors (1906).