Edward Bearcroft, KC (30 April 1737 – 20 November 1796) was an English barrister, judge, and politician.
Born on 30 April 1737, he was the second son of the Reverend Philip Bearcroft DD, then Preacher later Master of the Charterhouse, and his first wife, born Elizabeth Lovegrove. Educated at Charterhouse until 1752, he then went to Peterhouse, Cambridge and in 1754 began legal studies at the Inner Temple, being called to the bar on 24 November 1758. [1]
He built a respectable and lucrative practice as a barrister, being appointed counsel and steward of accounts to the governors of Charterhouse in 1765 and King's Counsel on 24 July 1772. In the Inner Temple he was a bencher in 1772, reader in 1780 and treasurer in 1781. He appeared in major trials, in 1778 being a defending counsel in the case of R v Baillie, where Captain Baillie was accused of criminal libel and in 1784 he was counsel for the prosecution in the case at Shrewsbury against William Davies Shipley, Dean of St Asaph, for seditious libel, now known as The Case of the Dean of St Asaph.
In 1788 he was appointed Chief Justice of Chester, holding the post despite increasing deafness until his death. In October 1794 he was among the counsel for the Crown in the 1794 Treason Trials. [1]
He unsuccessfully contested Worcester in the general election of 1774, but was returned as Member of Parliament for Hindon in 1784. His parliamentary patron, William Thomas Beckford, then offered him the seat of Saltash, where he was returned in 1790, holding it until his death. [1] [2]
In Parliament, he support the administration of William Pitt when he was not away sitting on the Chester circuit. He spoke against John Horne Tooke's Westminster election petition on 9 December 1790, was listed hostile to the repeal of the Test Act in Scotland in April 1791, attempted to define the function of juries in libel cases on 31 May 1791, opposed the Farnham Hop bill as an attack on private property on 7 June 1793, and on 3 March 1794 defended the petition of Christopher Atkinson Saville. [1]
On 28 July 1795 he wrote to Pitt asking that his second son Philip be appointed Deputy Commissary of Accounts on the staff of the British forces in Santo Domingo, now Haiti; this request was granted. He was re-elected in 1796 but died on 20 November 1796 at Northampton. [1]
On 31 October 1758, he married Sarah Maria Molesworth, born 27 October 1737, the daughter of the Honourable Hamilton Walter Molesworth and his wife Sarah Maria Skrine. [3] She died on 28 August 1759, leaving one son, Edward. He next married Elizabeth Rogers, born 1733, the daughter and coheiress of Edward Rogers who lived at Newent and his wife Elizabeth. She died on 13 October 1774 leaving one daughter, Elizabeth, and one son, Philip. On 21 December 1778 he married Clare St George Wilson, born 1748, the daughter of Edmond Wilson who lived at Mortlake, and they had two sons and three daughters. She survived him and on 30 January 1797 wrote to Pitt to say that her husband's money had gone to his eldest son and his lands to his second son, leaving her penniless with five children. On 9 March 1800 she was awarded a modest government pension of 200 pounds a year, worth about 18,000 pounds a year in 2015. [1]
Charles Stanhope, 3rd Earl Stanhope, aka Charles Mahon, 3rd Earl Stanhope, FRS, was a British statesman and scientist. He was the father of the great traveller and Arabist Lady Hester Stanhope and brother-in-law of William Pitt the Younger. He is sometimes confused with an exact contemporary of his, Charles Stanhope, 3rd Earl of Harrington. His lean and awkward figure was extensively caricatured by James Sayers and James Gillray, reflecting his political opinions and his relationship with his children.
Thomas Erskine, 1st Baron Erskine, was a British lawyer and politician. He served as Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain between 1806 and 1807 in the Ministry of All the Talents.

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Sir John Lubbock, 1st Baronet was an eminent English banker. Lubbock was also a merchant and Member of Parliament. He was the first son of a Cambridge don, the Reverend William Lubbock of Lammas, Norfolk, by Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Cooper of North Walsham, Norfolk. He married Elizabeth Christiana Commerell, daughter of his business partner, Frederick Commerell of Hanwell, Middlesex and his wife Catherine Elton on 12 Oct 1771 at St Dunstan's in the East, London. They had no children. In 1806 he was created a baronet, of Lammas, with remainder to his nephew John William Lubbock, who succeeded him as second baronet.
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Sir William Molesworth, 6th Baronet was one of the Molesworth baronets of Pencarrow, Cornwall and a British politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1784 and 1790.
R v Baillie, also known as the Greenwich Hospital Case, was a 1778 prosecution of Thomas Baillie for criminal libel. The case initiated the legal career of Thomas Erskine. Baillie, the Lieutenant-Governor of the Greenwich Hospital for Seamen, a facility for injured or pensioned off seamen, had noted irregularities and corruption in the hospital, which was formally run by the Earl of Sandwich. After his official reporting of the problems failed to bring about reform in the hospital, Baillie published a pamphlet that was critical of the hospital's officers, alleging that Sandwich had given appointments to pay off political debts; Sandwich ignored the pamphlet but ensured that Baillie was indicted for criminal libel. Baillie hired five barristers, including Erskine, then newly called to the Bar, and appeared before Lord Mansfield in the Court of King's Bench on 23 November 1778.
The Case of the Dean of St Asaph, formally R v Shipley, was the 1784 trial of William Davies Shipley, the Dean of St Asaph, for seditious libel. In the aftermath of the American War of Independence, electoral reform had become a substantial issue, and William Pitt the Younger attempted to bring a Bill before Parliament to reform the electoral system. In its support Shipley republished a pamphlet written by his brother-in-law, Sir William Jones, which noted the defects of the existing system and argued in support of Pitt's reforms. Thomas FitzMaurice, the brother of British Prime Minister Earl of Shelburne, reacted by indicting Shipley for seditious libel, a criminal offence which acted as "the government's chief weapon against criticism", since merely publishing something that an individual judge interpreted as libel was enough for a conviction; a jury was prohibited from deciding whether the material was actually libellous. The law was widely seen as unfair, and a Society for Constitutional Information was formed to pay Shipley's legal fees. With financial backing from the society Shipley was able to secure the services of Thomas Erskine KC as his barrister.
William Davies Shipley was an Anglican priest who served as Dean of St Asaph for nearly 52 years, from 27 May 1774 until his death. In a legal cause célèbre which became known as the Case of the Dean of St Asaph, he was tried and convicted on a charge of seditious libel in August 1784, but was discharged by the Court of King's Bench a few months later without being punished.
Philip Bearcroft, D.D. was an English clergyman and antiquary.