Richard Newton (justice)

Last updated May 15, 2019

Sir Richard Newton KS (died 13 December 1448) was a British justice. He was educated as a lawyer at Middle Temple, and created a Serjeant-at-law in 1425, followed by a promotion to King's Serjeant in 1430. By December of the same year he had also become Recorder of Bristol, where he had close ties; he also had links with Wales, where by September 1426 he had been appointed as an Itinerant justice to Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester at his court in Pembrokeshire. In 1438 he led a commission of Oyer and terminer in Carmarthenshire and Cardiganshire, and in November of that year he was appointed a justice of the Court of Common Pleas. Less than a year later on 17 September 1439 he was made Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, being granted £93 6s. 8d. as well as the usual fee. By July 1440 he had been knighted, and in 1441 he acted as an arbitrator to decide the dispute over the inheritance of Thomas Berkeley. He died on 13 December 1448 and was buried in St Mary's, Yatton, leaving money to finance a bell for the church.^[1]

The Honourable Society of the Middle Temple, commonly known simply as Middle Temple, is one of the four Inns of Court exclusively entitled to call their members to the English Bar as barristers, the others being the Inner Temple, Gray's Inn and Lincoln's Inn. It is located in the wider Temple area of London, near the Royal Courts of Justice, and within the City of London.

A Serjeant-at-Law (SL), commonly known simply as a Serjeant, was a member of an order of barristers at the English bar. The position of Serjeant-at-Law, or Sergeant-Counter, was centuries old; there are writs dating to 1300 which identify them as descended from figures in France before the Norman Conquest. The Serjeants were the oldest formally created order in England, having been brought into existence as a body by Henry II. The order rose during the 16th century as a small, elite group of lawyers who took much of the work in the central common law courts. With the creation of Queen's Counsel during the reign of Elizabeth I, the order gradually began to decline, with each monarch opting to create more King's or Queen's Counsel. The Serjeants' exclusive jurisdictions were ended during the 19th century and, with the Judicature Act 1873 coming into force in 1875, it was felt that there was no need to have such figures, and no more were created. The last Irish Serjeant-at-Law was Serjeant Sullivan. The last English Serjeant-at-Law was Lord Lindley.

Bristol is a city and county in South West England with a population of 459,300. The wider district has the 10th-largest population in England. The urban area population of 724,000 is the 8th-largest in the UK. The city borders North Somerset and South Gloucestershire, with the cities of Bath and Gloucester to the south-east and north-east, respectively. South Wales lies across the Severn estuary.

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References

↑ "Oxford DNB article: Newton, Sir Richard" . Retrieved 2008-10-02.

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Preceded by John Cottesmore	Chief Justice of the Common Pleas 1439–1448	Succeeded by John Prysot

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[1] "Oxford DNB article: Newton, Sir Richard" . Retrieved 2008-10-02.