John Copley, 1st Baron Lyndhurst

John Singleton Copley, Baron Lyndhurst ( born May 21, 1772 in Boston, Massachusetts, † October 12, 1863 in London ) was an English statesman.

Life

Three years after his birth in Massachusetts, the family moved to England, where his father John Singleton Copley enjoyed the reputation of an excellent portrait painter. He first studied theology at Cambridge, then in London jurisprudence. As a lawyer, he soon gained the respectable practice, and in 1816 elected by the town of Yarmouth in the House of Commons, he became especially known for his defense of the accused as a traitor radicals Watson and Thistlewood.

1819 appointed solicitor general, he acted as prosecutor against the Queen Caroline in the House of Lords. In 1824 he was promoted to Attorney General, and in 1826 he was given the post of Master of the Rolls. When George Canning was appointed Prime Minister in 1827, Lyndhurst was raised to the Lord Chancellor ( to 1830 ) under the title Baron Lyndhurst on the peer of England.

During the struggle for parliamentary reform, he was the most violent spokesman for the High Tories. In the Ministry, the Robert Peel and Arthur Wellesley formed in November 1834 he held again a short time the office of Lord Chancellor. Am passionate he contradicted the concessions which the Whigs wanted to make the Irish Catholics. From August 1841 to 1846 he held under Peel for the third time the office of Lord Chancellor.

Despite his age and his poor health he has since remained one of the most influential members of the Conservative Party of the Upper House, where he was regarded as an authority on legal matters and powerful speaker.

His speeches on the oriental policy of the government, about the war and conclusion of peace with Russia made ​​him popular again in high degree; no less was the case when he in 1859 and 1860, his powerful voice against the policy of conquest of Napoleon III. rose.

Lyndhurst died at the age of 90 after a short illness on October 12, 1863 in London.

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