EYRE, Sir JAMES (1734-99). An English judge, the son of Rev. Thomas Eyre, prebendary of Salisbury. He was born at Wells, Somerset shire, in 1734; became a scholar of Winchester in 1747, and a student of Saint John's College, Oxford, in 1749. At the age of nineteen, with out waiting to take his degree, he went to Lon don. and commenced the study of law, being called to the bar in 1755. A few years later he became Counsel to the Corporation of London, and in 1763 was made Recorder. In the same year he gained a great reputation through the skill and eloquence with which he conducted the famous suit of Wilkes vs. Wood, in which he successfully attacked the unconstitutional prac tice of the Government in issuing general search warrants. (State Trials, xix., 1154.) Eyre was knighted and made a Baron of Exchequer in 1772, became Chief Baron in 1787, and in 1793 was appointed Chief -Justice of the Court of Common Pleas. in the latter capacity he presided at the famous State trials of Hardy, Horne Tooke, and others, for treasonable con spiracy, which resulted in the acquittal of the prisoners. For a short time, between the resigna
tion of Lord Chancellor Thurlo•, on June 15, 1792, and the accession of Lord Loughborough to the Chancellorship on January 21, 1793. Chief Just ice Eyre held the highest judicial position in England. as Chief Commissioner of the Great Seal. As a lawyer and as judge. he displayed the high est legal and judicial qualities. Though not pro foundly learned, he was well versed in the com mon law, and his patience, tact, and ingenuity, combined with an extraordinary power of sifting evidence and a luminous style, made him one of the ornaments of the English bench. He died July 1, 1799. See Howell's State Trials, xix., 1154-55; xxiv., 199; xxv., 2, 743 (London, 1869 26) ; Foss, Lices of the Judges of England (1843 64).