Sir Clement Wearg (1686–1726) was an English lawyer and politician, solicitor-general from 1724.
Her Majesty's Solicitor General for England and Wales, known informally as the Solicitor General, is one of the Law Officers of the Crown, and the deputy of the Attorney General, whose duty is to advise the Crown and Cabinet on the law. He or she can exercise the powers of the Attorney General in the Attorney General's absence.
He was son and heir of Thomas Wearg of the Inner Temple, who married in 1679 Mary Fletcher of Ely, and was born in London. He was baptised at St. Botolph Without, Aldersgate, where his grandfather, Thomas Wearg, a wealthy merchant, lived. He matriculated at Peterhouse, Cambridge in 1705, [1] and was admitted student at the Inner Temple on 25 November 1706; he was called to the bar in 1711, and became bencher in 1723, reader in 1724, and treasurer in 1725.
The Honourable Society of the Inner Temple, commonly known as Inner Temple, is one of the four Inns of Court in London. To be called to the Bar and practise as a barrister in England and Wales, an individual must belong to one of these Inns. It is located in the wider Temple area of the capital, near the Royal Courts of Justice, and within the City of London.
Ely is a cathedral city in Cambridgeshire, England, about 14 miles (23 km) north-northeast of Cambridge and about 80 miles (129 km) by road from London. Æthelthryth founded an abbey at Ely in 673; the abbey was destroyed in 870 by Danish invaders and was rebuilt by Æthelwold, Bishop of Winchester, in 970. Construction of the cathedral was started in 1083 by a Norman abbot, Simeon. Alan of Walsingham's octagon, built over Ely's nave crossing between 1322 and 1328, is the "greatest individual achievement of architectural genius at Ely Cathedral", according to architectural historian Nikolaus Pevsner. Building continued until the dissolution of the abbey in 1539 during the Reformation. The cathedral was sympathetically restored between 1845 and 1870 by the architect George Gilbert Scott. As the seat of a diocese, Ely has long been considered a city; in 1974, city status was granted by royal charter.
Peterhouse is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. It is the oldest college of the university, having been founded in 1284 by Hugo de Balsham, Bishop of Ely, and granted its charter by King Edward I. Today, Peterhouse has 254 undergraduates, 116 full-time graduate students and 54 fellows. The official name of Peterhouse does not include "college", although "Peterhouse College" is often seen in public.
Wearg held strong Whig and Protestant views. He acted as the counsel for the crown in the prosecutions of Christopher Layer and Bishop Francis Atterbury, and was one of the principal managers for the House of Commons in the trial of Lord Chancellor Macclesfield. In 1722 he contested, without success, the borough of Shaftesbury in Dorset, but was returned for the Whig borough of Helston in Cornwall on 10 March 1724, having been appointed solicitor-general on the previous 1 February. About the same time he was created a knight. He died of a fever on 6 April 1726, and was buried, in accordance with the request in his will, in the Temple churchyard, under a plain raised tomb, on 12 April.
Christopher Layer (1683–1723) was an English Jacobite conspirator, executed for high treason in 1723 for his part in what became known as the Atterbury Plot.
Francis Atterbury was an English man of letters, politician and bishop. A High Church Tory and Jacobite, he gained patronage under Queen Anne, but was mistrusted by the Hanoverian Whig ministries, and banished for communicating with the Old Pretender. He was a noted wit and a gifted preacher.
Shaftesbury was a parliamentary constituency in Dorset. It returned two Members of Parliament to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom from 1295 until 1832 and one member until the constituency was abolished in 1885.
A volume published in 1723 contained The Replies of Thomas Reeve and Clement Wearg in the House of Lords, 13 May 1723, against the Defence made by the Late Bishop of Rochester and his Counsel. Other attributed works were the subject of controversy at the time. Edmund Curll advertised late in 1726 the publication of six volumes of Cases of Impotence and Divorce, by Sir Clement Wearg, late Solicitor-General. Curll was attacked for this by ‘A. P.’ in the ‘London Journal’ on 12 November 1726; and two days later swore an affidavit that a book produced by him, and entitled The Case of Impotency as debated in England, Anno 1613, in Trial between Robert, Earl of Essex, and the Lady Frances Howard, 1715, was also by Wearg. It was dated from the Inner Temple, 30 October 1714. Wearg then had chambers in the new court.
Edmund Curll was an English bookseller and publisher. His name has become synonymous, through the attacks on him by Alexander Pope, with unscrupulous publication and publicity. Curll rose from poverty to wealth through his publishing, and he did this by approaching book printing in a mercenary and unscrupulous manner. By cashing in on scandals, publishing pornography, offering up patent medicine, using all publicity as good publicity, he managed a small empire of printing houses. He would publish high and low quality writing alike, so long as it sold. He was born in the West Country, and his late and incomplete recollections say that his father was a tradesman. He was an apprentice to a London bookseller in 1698 when he began his career.
He married Elizabeth, only daughter of Sir James Montagu, chief baron of the exchequer. She died on 9 March 1746, and was buried in the same grave with her husband on 14 March. They had no children.
Edward Thurlow, 1st Baron Thurlow, PC, KC was a British lawyer and Tory politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1765 to 1778 when he was raised to the peerage as Baron Thurlow. He served as Lord Chancellor of Great Britain for fourteen years and under four Prime Ministers.
Thomas Trevor, 1st Baron Trevor was a British judge and politician who was Attorney-General and later Lord Privy Seal.
James Gibbs was one of Britain's most influential architects. Born in Scotland, he trained as an architect in Rome, and practised mainly in England. He is an important figure whose work spanned the transition between English Baroque architecture and a Georgian architecture heavily influenced by Andrea Palladio. Among his most important works are St Martin-in-the-Fields, the cylindrical, domed Radcliffe Camera at Oxford University, and the Senate House at Cambridge University
William Webster (1689–1758) was a British priest in the Church of England and a theological writer.
Henry Temple, 1st Viscount Palmerston was an Anglo-Irish nobleman, landowner and Whig politician who sat in the British House of Commons from 1727 to 1747.
Sir Robert Sawyer, of Highclere (1633–1692) was the Attorney General for England and Wales (1681–1687) and, briefly, Speaker of the English House of Commons.
Sir Thomas Hales, 3rd Baronet, of Beakesbourne in Kent, was an English courtier and Member of Parliament.
John Manningham was an English lawyer and diarist, a contemporary source for Elizabethan era and Jacobean era life and the London dramatic world, including William Shakespeare.
Sir Thomas Reeve was a British justice.
John Lee, KC, was an English lawyer, politician, and law officer of the Crown. He assisted in the early days of Unitarianism in England.
Sir James Montagu SL KC was an English barrister, and judge. As a politician, he sat in the House of Commons at various times between 1695 and 1713 and served as Solicitor General and Attorney General.
Sir John Tremayne SL (1647–1694) was an English lawyer and politician. He became a Serjeant-at-Law and King's Serjeant in 1689, acting as counsel during a number of cases before the House of Lords. He also represented Tregony in Parliament between 1690 and 1694.
Anthony Ellys (1690–1761) was an English churchman who became bishop of St David's in 1752.
Nicholas Fazakerley, of Prescot, Lancashire, was an English lawyer and politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1732 to 1767.
Sir Edward Ward (1638–1714) was an English lawyer and judge. He became chief baron of the exchequer, and is best known as the judge in the state trial for piracy of Captain Kidd.
William Richardson (1698–1775) was an English academic and antiquary, Master of Emmanuel College, Cambridge from 1736.
Sir Sidney Stafford Smythe, PC, KC was an English judge and politician.
Sir Thomas Clarke, of Brickendon, Hertfordshire, was a British lawyer and politician who sat in the English and British House of Commons between 1705 and 1741.
Sir William Chapple of Waybay House, Upwey, Dorset and Wonersh, Surrey, was a British lawyer and Whig politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1723 to 1737. He became a High Court Judge in 1737 and presided over the trial of highwayman Dick Turpin.
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The Dictionary of National Biography (DNB) is a standard work of reference on notable figures from British history, published since 1885. The updated Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (ODNB) was published on 23 September 2004 in 60 volumes and online, with 50,113 biographical articles covering 54,922 lives.
| Parliament of Great Britain | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Sir Robert Raymond Walter Carey | Member of Parliament for Helston 1724–1726 With: Walter Carey | Succeeded by Walter Carey Exton Sayer |
| Legal offices | ||
| Preceded by Sir Philip Yorke | Solicitor General 1724–1726 | Succeeded by Sir Charles Talbot |