ELDON, John Scott, 1st Emu. OF, English jurist and Lord Chancellor: b. Newcastle, 4 June 1751; d. London, 13 Jan. 1838. He was educated at Oxford, at University College, re ceiving his M.A. in 1773. In 1771 he won an English prize by his essay on The Advantages and Disadvantages of Travelling into Foreign Countries.> He had intended taking clerical orders, but gave up the idea in order to marry Elizabeth Surtees, the daughter of a wealthy banker of Newcastle-upon-Tyne (1772). Scott was readmitted to the university and entered the Middle Temple in 1773, where he began the study of law and supported himself by tutor ing. His success in the law was rapid. He be came a member of the bar in 1776, a bencher in 1783, and in the same year was made one of the king's counsels. His sound knowledge of the law atoned for his ineffective oratory and he entered Parliament in 1783, where he soon made his mark as an independent and serious thinker. He supported the Pitt ministry and in 1788 was knighted. In the same year, he was made solicitor-general. On Thurlow's dis missal from the new Parliament he offered his resignation to Pitt, but was induced to return, and in 1793 succeeded Sir Archibald MacDon ald as Attorney-General. His association with the rigorous administration made him exceed ingly unpopular. His measures in the state trials, his strict interpretations of the treason laws and the vigorous laws he assisted in pro mulgating heightened the effect of his severity. In 1799 he was chosen to succeed Sir James Eyre as lord chief justice of the Common Pleas, and also became sergeant-at-law and a member of the privy council and board of trade. He was also raised to the peerage as Baron Eldon of Eldon, in the county of Durham, where he had bought an estate. He became Chief Justice in 1801, and Lord Chancellor of England. Throughout the king's illness he administered affairs with great surety and force.
After the death of Pitt, he was forced to with draw, but was returned in 1807 in the Port land administration, where he soon became the foremost member of the Cabinet. He bent all his able energies to the subjugation of Napoleon. He was the king's strongest ad herent and served him with all his powers. In 1811, when the Icing's lunacy became chronic, Eldon immediately undertook to gain the confidence of the prince. In spite of attacks by his enemies, he succeeded and by assisting in the formation of the Liverpool cabinet, re entrenched the Tory policies. He arranged for the marriage of the Princess Charlotte with Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg. His resist ance to the queen's plans rendered him again unpopular with the mass of people, but gained him the loyalty of the Prince, who just before his coronation as George IV bestowed on him the titles of Viscount Encombe and Earl of Eldon. However, this marked the highest point of his career. After the death of the queen, Canning's party came into power and Eldon resigned from the Cabinet. He continued to talce an interest in politics and his opinions were highly esteemed by his fellow Tories. He survived to talce oaths of fealty to Queen Victoria.
Eldon was an able jurist and administrator, of fascinating personality and an agreeable com panion. His faults lay in his adherence to the strict letters of the law, his sophistry and his insistence on hair-splitting definitions and dis tinctions. His decisions were never hasty nor ill-founded. Consult Townsend, 'Lives of Twelve Eminent Judges) ( London 1846) ; Twiss, (Life of Lord-Chancellor Eldon' (ib. lt344) Surtees, 'Sketch of the Lives of Lords Stowell and Eldon' (1846) ; Campbell, (Lives of the Chancellors) (1874).