Lord Campbell, John Campbell, 1st Baron Campbell

Photographie originale / Original photograph

Erscheinungsdatum: 1870

Beschreibung

Photographie,vintage CDV albumen carte de visite, John Campbell, 1st Baron Campbell, PC, KC, FRSE (17 September 1779 ? 24 June 1861) was a British Liberal politician, lawyer and man of letters. The second son of the Reverend George Campbell, D.D., and Magdalene Hallyburton,[1] he was born at Cupar, Fife, Scotland, where his father was for fifty years parish minister. For a few years Campbell studied at the United College, St Andrews. In 1800 he was entered as a student at Lincoln's Inn, and, after working briefly for the Morning Chronicle, was called to the bar in 1806. Legal and political career[edit] Campbell at once began to report cases decided at nisi prius (i.e. on jury trial). Of these reports he published four volumes; they extend from Michaelmas 1807 to Hilary 1816. Campbell also devoted himself to criminal business, but failed to attract much attention behind the bar. It was not till 1827 that Campbell took silk and began to develop political aspirations. He had unsuccessfully contested the borough of Stafford in 1826, but was returned for it in 1830 and again in 1831. He stood as a moderate Whig, in favour of the connection of church and state and opposed to triennial parliaments and the secret ballot. His main object, like Lord Brougham, was the amelioration of the law by the abolition of cumbrous technicalities rather than the assertion of new principles. To this end his name is associated with the Fines and Recoveries Abolition Act 1833; the Inheritance Act 1833; the Dower Act 1833; the Real Property Limitation Act 1833; the Wills Act 1837; the Copyhold Tenure Act 1841; and the Judgments Act 1838. The second was called for by the preference which the common law gave to a distant collateral over the brother of the half-blood of the first purchaser; the fourth conferred an indefeasible title on adverse possession for twenty years (a term shortened by Lord Cairns in 1875 to twelve years); the fifth reduced the number of witnesses required by law to attest wills, and removed the distinction which existed in this respect between freeholds and copyholds; the last freed an innocent debtor from imprisonment only before final judgment (or on what was termed mesne process), but the principle stated by Campbell that only fraudulent debtors should be imprisoned was ultimately given effect to for England and Wales in 1869. Perhaps his most important appearance as a member of parliament (MP) for Stafford was in defence of Lord John Russell's first Reform Bill (1831). In a speech, based on Charles James Fox's declaration against constitution-mongering, he supported both the enfranchising and the disfranchising clauses. The following year (1832) found Campbell Solicitor General, a knight and member for Dudley. Dudley had been enfranchised under the Reform Act of 1832 and so Campbell became the first MP to represent the town in modern history. However, his appointment to the post of Attorney General in 1834 lead to a by-election, which he lost to Thomas Hawkes.[2] John Campbell returned to Parliament swiftly, however, as he was returned by Edinburgh in 1835,[3] which seat he represented until his ennoblement in 1841. One of his first acts as Attorney General was the prosecution of a bookseller called Hetherington on the charge of blasphemous libel. In this case Campbell gave his opinion that morality depended on divine revelation: the vast majority of the population believe that morality depends on entirely on revelation; and if a doubt could be raised among them that the ten commandments were given by God from Mount Sinai, men would think they were at liberty to steal, and women would think themselves absolved from the restraints of chastity.[4] In 1840 Campbell conducted the prosecution against John Frost, one of the three Chartist leaders who attacked the town of Newport, all of whom were found guilty of high treason. Next year, as the Melbourne administration was near its close, Plunkett, the Lord Chancellor of Ireland, was f. Bestandsnummer des Verkäufers PD8580

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Erscheinungsdatum: 1870