Anthony Gell was a law reporter active in the reigns of Edward VI to

Elizabeth I Elizabeth I (7 September 153324 March 1603) was Queen of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death in 1603. Elizabeth was the last of the five House of Tudor monarchs and is sometimes referred to as the "Virgin Queen". El ...

. He was born at

Hopton Hall Hopton Hall is an 18th-century country house at Hopton, near Wirksworth, Derbyshire. It is a Grade II listed building. The Manor of Hopton, anciently the seat of the de Hopton family, was acquired by the Gell family in 1553 by Ralph Gell (1491� ...

to Ralph and Godeth Gell in around 1522.Suzanne Doig,
Anthony Gell (abt. 1522 - 1583)
, Wikitree. Archived from th
original
on 31 March 2021. Retrieved 31 March 2021. He studied at

Clement's Inn The Inns of Chancery or ''Hospida Cancellarie'' were a group of buildings and legal institutions in London initially attached to the Inns of Court and used as offices for the clerks of chancery, from which they drew their name. Existing from a ...

in the early 1540s, and as a young student in London, he witnessed a sermon by the famous preacher Hugh Latimer.Jonathan McGovern,
Newly Discovered Notes of a Sermon by Hugh Latimer
, ''The Journal of Ecclesiastical History'' 71, no. 3 (2020), 596-601 In 1545, he was appointed principal of Clement's Inn, and shortly afterwards was called to the bar at the

Inner Temple The Honourable Society of the Inner Temple, commonly known as the Inner Temple, is one of the four Inns of Court and is a professional associations for barristers and judges. To be called to the Bar and practise as a barrister in England and Wal ...

.J.H. Baker,
Gell, Anthony (d. 1583)
, Oxford DNB Online. He wrote a series of law reports, one of which survives at the

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library is ...

and another at the

Derbyshire Record Office The Derbyshire Record Office, established in 1962, is the county record office for Derbyshire, England. It holds archives and local studies material for the County of Derbyshire and the City of Derby and Diocese of Derby. It is situated in Matl ...

. He was appointed a bencher of the Inner Temple in 1559. He accumulated much wealth as an attorney, some of which he used to endow the grammar school at Wirksworth, now known as Anthony Gell School. He was granted arms in 1575: ''Per bend Azure and Or three mullets of six points in bend pierced and counter changed''. He died, unmarried and childless, on 29 June 1583 and was buried in St Mary's Church, Wirksworth, where his effigy may still be seen.

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* 1522 births 1583 deaths People from Derbyshire Dales (district) English barristers Members of the Inner Temple English philanthropists 16th-century English lawyers English legal writers {{England-law-bio-stub