Henry Fielding was an English novelist, irony writer, and dramatist known for earthy humour and satire. His comic novel Tom Jones is still widely appreciated. He and Samuel Richardson are seen as founders of the traditional English novel. He also holds a place in the history of law enforcement, having used his authority as a magistrate to found the Bow Street Runners, London's first intermittently funded, full-time police force.
Sir William Blackstone was an English jurist, judge and Tory politician most noted for writing the Commentaries on the Laws of England. Born into a middle-class family in London, Blackstone was educated at Charterhouse School before matriculating at Pembroke College, Oxford, in 1738. After switching to and completing a Bachelor of Civil Law degree, he was made a fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, on 2 November 1743, admitted to Middle Temple, and called to the Bar there in 1746. Following a slow start to his career as a barrister, Blackstone became heavily involved in university administration, becoming accountant, treasurer and bursar on 28 November 1746 and Senior Bursar in 1750. Blackstone is considered responsible for completing the Codrington Library and Warton Building, and simplifying the complex accounting system used by the college. On 3 July 1753 he formally gave up his practice as a barrister and instead embarked on a series of lectures on English law, the first of their kind. These were massively successful, earning him a total of £453, and led to the publication of An Analysis of the Laws of England in 1756, which repeatedly sold out and was used to preface his later works.
Robert Bannatyne Finlay, 1st Viscount Finlay,, known as Sir Robert Finlay from 1895 to 1916, was a British barrister and politician who was Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain from 1916 to 1919.
Archibald Hutcheson was a British politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1713 to 1727.
John Glynn Serjeant-at-law of Glynn (1722–1779) was an English lawyer and politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1768 to 1779. Glynn was born to a family of Cornish gentry. He inherited his father's estate at Glynn in the parish of Cardinham, Cornwall, on the deaths of his elder brother and his nephew.
Nominate reports, also known as nominative reports, named reports and private reports, is a legal term from common-law jurisdictions referring to the various published collections of reports of English cases in various courts from the Middle Ages to the 1860s, when law reporting was officially taken over by the Incorporated Council of Law Reporting, for example Edmund F. Moore's Reports of Cases Heard and Determined by the Judicial Committee and the Lords of His Majesty's most Honourable Privy Council on Appeal from the Supreme and Sudder Dewanny Courts in the East Indies published in London from 1837 to 1873, referred to as Moore's Indian Appeals and cited for example as: Moofti Mohummud Ubdoollah v. Baboo Mootechund 1 M.I.A. 383.
Sir John Comyns SL, of Writtle in Essex, was an English judge and Member of Parliament.
Harry Peckham was a King's Counsel, judge and sportsman who toured Europe and wrote a series of letters which are still being published over 200 years later. Peckham was a member of the committee that drew up early laws of cricket including the first inclusion of the leg before wicket (lbw) rule. The diarist James Woodforde makes reference to Peckham playing cricket at Oxford in 1760. and he was still playing in 1771.
Sir George Treby JP (1643–1700), of Plympton, Devon, and of Fleet Street in the City of London, was Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas and six times Member of Parliament for the Rotten Borough of Plympton Erle, Devon, largely controlled by him and his descendants until abolished by the Great Reform Act of 1832.
Sir Henry Pollexfen of Nutwell in the parish of Woodbury, Devon, was Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas.
John Fortescue Aland, 1st Baron Fortescue of Credan, of Stapleford Abbotts, Essex, was an English lawyer, judge and politician who sat in the House of Commons for two years from 1715 to 1717. He wrote on English legal and constitutional history, and was said to have influenced Thomas Jefferson. A member of both the Middle Temple and Inner Temple, he became a King's Counsel in 1714 and was then appointed Solicitor General, first to the Prince of Wales and then to his father George I in 1715. After a short stint as a Member of Parliament, Fortescue Aland was knighted and elevated to the Bench as a Baron of the Exchequer in 1717. He was subsequently a justice of the Court of King's Bench (1718–1727) and of the Court of Common Pleas (1728–1746), save for a brief hiatus between 1727 and 1728 which has been attributed to George II's displeasure with one of his legal opinions.
Sir John Strange was a British politician and judge.
Sir Bartholomew Shower (1658–1701) was an English lawyer and politician, Recorder of London and a distinguished High Tory.
William Shippen was an English Jacobite and Tory politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1707 to 1743.
Sir Thomas Parker, PC, KS (1695–1784) was an English barrister and judge, Privy Counsellor and Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer.
Sir John Bramston, the younger, was an English lawyer and politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1660 to 1679. The son of Sir John Bramston, the elder and his first wife Bridget Moundeford, daughter of Thomas Moundeford, he was educated at Wadham College, Oxford, and called to bar at Middle Temple in 1635. In 1660 he was elected to the Convention Parliament for the county of Essex and again in the Cavalier Parliament of 1661. He frequently acted as chairman of committees of the whole House of Commons of England and was returned to parliament for Maldon in 1679 and 1685. He left an autobiography.
Roger Acherley was an English lawyer, constitutional writer and politician.
Sir Edmund Saunders was an English judge, promoted to a high position at the end of the reign of Charles II of England.
William Newland Welsby was a legal writer who was born in Acton, Cheshire about 1802, was the only son of William Welsby of the Middle Temple, gentleman.
John Bruce Williamson KC (1859–1938) was a British barrister and historical author.
