EL'DON, Lord (Joitx Scorrl (17.51-18381. Lord High Chancellor of England. and one of the greatest of English judges: born at New castle-on-Tyne. June 4. 1751. In 17116 he went to Oxford, where his brother was then a tutor, and entered Cniversity College. In 1770 lie took his baeldor's degree. and in 1771 gained the Chancellor's Prize for an English essay. A clan destine marriage with a :.\liss Surtees. the daugh ter of a Newcastle hanker, into which lie entered in 1772, not only list lihn his fellowship and cut off his clerical prospects, but threatened for a time to throw him into mercantile life. How ever. his brother's influence was strong enough to prevent this, and by his advic• John returned to the university, where lie supported himself by tutoring and in the meantime devoted himself assiduously to the study of law. His legal stud ies covered a narrow rallifc, being confined almost entirely to Littleton, Coke, and the law reports, but must have been of the most intense and thonoigh character. In the year 17741. in which he was admitted to the bar, the death of his father placed him in possession of a small hut sufliei•nt fortune. In 1783. after only seven years at the bar, he won the distinction of beemning Ring's counsel and a her of the Ai lc TP111 pl... In the same year he became a member of Parliament. where he supported the administra tion of the younger l'itt. 'Though not a natural orator, and though he never became a good de bater. his great energy and the force of his intellect and (diameter made him a valuable and influential member of Parliament, and speedily gained for him political preferment. In June. 1788, he was made Solicitor.General and received the honor of knighthood.
In 1793 he was made Attorney-General. and in that capacity condueted the famous State trials of the follow ing year. In 17!)9 he was appointed Chief Justice of the Court of Common I'leas, and was raised to the i.••rage with the title of Baron Eldon, of Eldon, and two years later he became Lord Chan•ellor of England. and. with the ex ception of the year of the Grenville and Fox administration (1806-07); held that high office until 1827. The great dignity of the chancellor ship and its close relations to the Crown made it, in Eldon's else as much a position of political as of legal authority and influence. The Chancellor
of George III.. of the Ilegeney, and of George IV., who was at the same thne the close friend and the most trusted adviser of the monarch, was pr• tically the mainstay of the Cron» and Govern ment during that long period of Tory ascendency. Ilis share in the administration of affairs was searcely disguised by the composition of the suc cessive ministries whose policy lie shaped and in whose behalf lie used without .scruple the great powers of his high office. In 1821, perhaps as a reward for the part taken by him in the matter of the proposed divorce (d the King. he was fur ther lammed with the dignity of Viscount. En combe and Earl of Eldon. On the advent of the Canning :Ministry in 153; he resigned the great seal and retired to private life. Though not a lawyer of wide and extensive learning. knowing nothing of the Ronmn jurisprudence or of the civil law of modern Europe, his complete mastery of the common-law system, and the subtlety and acuteness of his reasoning powers. nude him a common-law judge of the highest, or all lint the highest, order. It is here that his fame most seen rely rests. Though recognized also as one of the greatest of equity judges. the lack of pre vision and definiteness in the rules of equity jurisdiction. and the scope which it permitted to the administration of justice on conscientious grounds, proved an emliarrassment to his logical mind. Ile was at his best when he hail definite rules and binding precedents to follow and to evade by :Mine distinctions. Though he, by these very qualities, contributed not a little to give definiteness and certainty to the equity system. he allowed business of the Court of Chancery to fall so much ill arrears as to embar rass the administration of justice and to give the court the reputation for dilatoriness from which it still unjustly suffers, lIe survived his retire ment from office for nearly eleven years. dying in London. January 13. 1st3s;. For his biography. consult : Twiss. The l'abli( and Prirate Lif, of Lord Ebbw (Philadelphia. 1844) : Surtees, SkrIeh of the Lir( s of Lords Stowell and Ehlon London. Is411) ; Lord Campbell. Lires of the Lords (*ham rllors of England ( London. 1s71-75