Sir Anthony Hart ( 1754 – 1831) was a British lawyer, who served as

Lord Chancellor of Ireland The Lord High Chancellor of Ireland (commonly known as Lord Chancellor of Ireland) was the highest judicial office in Ireland until the establishment of the Irish Free State in 1922. From 1721 to 1801, it was also the highest political office of ...

from 1827 to 1830.

Life

He was born into a slave-owning family about 1754 in the island of

Saint Kitts Saint Kitts, officially the Saint Christopher Island, is an island in the West Indies. The west side of the island borders the Caribbean Sea, and the eastern coast faces the Atlantic Ocean. Saint Kitts and the neighbouring island of Nevis cons ...

, West Indies, fourth son of William Hart and Sarah Johnson. He said to have been educated at Tonbridge School and to have been a unitarian preacher at

Norwich Norwich () is a cathedral city and district of Norfolk, England, of which it is the county town. Norwich is by the River Wensum, about north-east of London, north of Ipswich and east of Peterborough. As the seat of the See of Norwich, with ...

for a short time. He was admitted as a student of the

Middle Temple 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 an ...

in 1776 and was

called to the bar The call to the bar is a legal term of art in most common law jurisdictions where persons must be qualified to be allowed to argue in court on behalf of another party and are then said to have been "called to the bar" or to have received "call to ...

in 1781. He confined himself exclusively to equity work, and after practising twenty-six years at the outer bar was in 1807 appointed a

king's counsel In the United Kingdom and in some Commonwealth countries, a King's Counsel ( post-nominal initials KC) during the reign of a king, or Queen's Counsel (post-nominal initials QC) during the reign of a queen, is a lawyer (usually a barrister or ...

, and in the same year was elected a Bencher of his Inn. In 1816, he was made Solicitor-General to

Queen Charlotte Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz (Sophia Charlotte; 19 May 1744 – 17 November 1818) was Queen of Great Britain and of Ireland as the wife of King George III from their marriage on 8 September 1761 until the union of the two kingdoms ...

. Having been appointed vice-chancellor of the High Court of England in the place of Sir John Leach, he was appointed a

privy Counsellor The Privy Council (PC), officially His Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council, is a privy council, formal body of advisers to the British monarchy, sovereign of the United Kingdom. Its membership mainly comprises Politics of the United King ...

and

knighted A knight is a person granted an honorary title of knighthood by a head of state (including the Pope) or representative for service to the monarch, the Christian denomination, church or the country, especially in a military capacity. Knighthood ...

in 1827. He took his seat in the vice-chancellor's court in the following month. Following the resignation of Lord Liverpool's ministry in March 1827 Lord Manners resigned as Irish Chancellor. His natural successor would have been

Lord Plunket Baron Plunket, of Newtown in the County of Cork, is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created in 1827 for the prominent Irish lawyer and Whig politician William Plunket. He served as Lord Chancellor of Ireland from 1830 ...

but

George IV George IV (George Augustus Frederick; 12 August 1762 – 26 June 1830) was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and King of Hanover from the death of his father, King George III, on 29 January 1820, until his own death ten y ...

disapproved of Plunket's support for

Catholic Emancipation Catholic emancipation or Catholic relief was a process in the kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland, and later the combined United Kingdom in the late 18th century and early 19th century, that involved reducing and removing many of the restricti ...

. Instead, Manners remained in post whilst a successor was found. Eventually, in October 1827, to the surprise of the

Irish Irish may refer to: Common meanings * Someone or something of, from, or related to: ** Ireland, an island situated off the north-western coast of continental Europe ***Éire, Irish language name for the isle ** Northern Ireland, a constituent unit ...

Bar,

Lord Goderich Frederick John Robinson, 1st Earl of Ripon, (1 November 1782 – 28 January 1859), styled The Honourable F. J. Robinson until 1827 and known between 1827 and 1833 as The Viscount Goderich (pronounced ), the name by which he is best known to ...

offered Hart the post of Lord Chancellor of

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

.James Roderick O'Flanagan, ''The Lives of the Lord Chancellors and Keepers of the Great Seal of ...'', ii, ch. lx On accepting this office, Hart expressly stipulated ‘that he was to have no

politics Politics (from , ) is the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of resources or status. The branch of social science that studies ...

, general, local, or religious; and that of Papists and Orangemen he was to know nothing’. He was sworn in at Dublin on 5 November 1827, and took his seat in the Court of Chancery on the following day, when he immediately became involved in a serious misunderstanding with Sir William MacMahon, the

Master of the Rolls in Ireland The Master of the Rolls in Ireland was a senior judicial office in the Irish Chancery under English and British rule, and was equivalent to the Master of the Rolls in the English Chancery. Originally called the Keeper of the Rolls, he was respons ...

, in reference to the right of the latter to appoint a secretary. Hart did his best to shorten equity pleadings, which he considered were ‘too prolix in Ireland’. While he was lord chancellor, a singular case affecting the rights of the Irish bar arose, a full account of which will be found in O'Flanagan's ''Lives of the Lord Chancellors of Ireland''. Upon the formation of

Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey (13 March 1764 – 17 July 1845), known as Viscount Howick between 1806 and 1807, was a British Whig politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1830 to 1834. He was a member of the nob ...

's administration towards the close of 1830,

was appointed in Hart's place. Hart sat as lord chancellor for the last time on 22 December 1830, and was addressed in a farewell speech by the veteran lawyer

William Saurin William Saurin (1757 – 11 February 1839) was an Irish barrister, Crown official and politician. He was Attorney-General for Ireland from 1807 to 1822, and for much of that period, he acted as the effective head of the Irish Government. He was ...

, the former

Attorney General for Ireland The Attorney-General for Ireland was an Irish and then (from the Act of Union 1800) United Kingdom government office-holder. He was senior in rank to the Solicitor-General for Ireland: both advised the Crown on Irish legal matters. With the ...

, on behalf of the Irish bar. It is stated ‘as a fact without precedent that not a single decision of his was ever varied or reversed’. He died in Cumberland Street, Portman Square, London, on 6 December 1831. By his wife Martha Jefferson, he had one daughter, who was his sole heiress. An engraving taken from a portrait of Hart, sketched by Cahill, forms the frontispiece to the first volume of the ‘Irish Law Recorder.’

References

;Attribution {{DEFAULTSORT:Hart, Anthony 1754 births 1832 deaths Members of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom Lord chancellors of Ireland Members of the Privy Council of Ireland British slave owners