Sir John Peter De Gex (1809–1887) was an English barrister and law reporter.

Life

The eldest son of John de Gex of

Leicester Place Leicester Square ( ) is a pedestrianised square in the West End of London, England. It was laid out in 1670 as Leicester Fields, which was named after the recently built Leicester House, itself named after Robert Sidney, 2nd Earl of Leicester ...

, Middlesex, his family background was Swiss, his father having settled in England about the beginning of the century. He graduated B.A. at Jesus College, Cambridge, in 1831, and proceeded M.A. in 1834. Having entered

Lincoln's Inn The Honourable Society of Lincoln's Inn is one of the four Inns of Court in London to which barristers of England and Wales belong and where they are called to the Bar. (The other three are Middle Temple, Inner Temple and Gray's Inn.) Lincoln ...

on 4 November 1831, he 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 ...

there on 30 January 1835. His name first appears in the ''Law List'' in 1837. For many years he had next to no practice, and concentrated on law reporting. In 1871 De Gex became a director of the Legal and General Insurance Office, of which in 1867 he had been appointed auditor. He built up an extensive practice in bankruptcy. A case in 1869, in which he played a leading part, was that of the Duke of Newcastle (L. R. 5 Ch. App. 172). The question was whether the Duke of Newcastle, not being engaged in trade, was exempt from the operation of the law of bankruptcy on the ground of his being a peer. The bankruptcy court held that he was exempt. The case was argued before the

Court of Appeal A court of appeals, also called a court of appeal, appellate court, appeal court, court of second instance or second instance court, is any court of law that is empowered to hear an appeal of a trial court or other lower tribunal. In much of t ...

, De Gex being leading counsel for the appellant, and

Sir Roundell Palmer Roundell Palmer, 1st Earl of Selborne, (27 November 1812 – 4 May 1895) was an English lawyer and politician. He served twice as Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain. Background and education Palmer was born at Mixbury in Oxfordshire, where ...

representing the duke.

Lord Justice Giffard SIr George Markham Giffard, PC (4 November 1813 – 13 July 1870) was an English barrister and judge. Life The fourth son of Admiral John Giffard and Susannah, daughter of Sir John Carter, he was born at his father's official residence in Port ...

decided in favour of the appeal. De Gex took silk on 28 March 1865, with

Joshua Williams Sir Joshua Strange Williams (19 September 1837 – 22 December 1915) was a New Zealand lawyer, politician, Supreme Court judge and university chancellor. Early life Williams was born in London, England in 1837, the eldest son of the late J ...

and George Jessel; and then on 19 April he was elected a bencher of his inn. In 1882 he was elected treasurer of

, and in December of the same year he was knighted on occasion of the opening of the new law courts. He had then recently retired from practice. He died on 14 May 1887 at his residence, 20 Hyde Park Square, London. He was buried on 19 May at Kensal Green cemetery.

Works

De Gex collaborated on law reports first with Basil Montagu and Edward Deacon: "Montagu, Deacon, and De Gex" consisted of three volumes of ''Cases in Bankruptcy argued and determined in the Court of Review, and on Appeal before the Lord Chancellor'', London, 1842–5. In 1852 he published a volume of ''Cases in Bankruptcy decided by the Court of Review, Vice-chancellor Knight-Bruce, and the Lord-chancellors Lyndhurst and Cottenham''. At the same time he was reporting cases in chancery, with

John Jackson Smale Sir John Jackson Smale (1 March 1805 – 13 August 1882) was a British lawyer and judge. He served as Attorney General and the longest-serving Chief Justice of Hong Kong. Early life Smale was born on 1 March 1805 in Devon, England. He was ...

, and there resulted ''Reports of Cases decided in the High Court of Chancery, by Knight-Bruce, V.C., and Parker, V.C.'', 1849–1853, 5 vols. London. De Gex was associated with Steuart Macnaghten, who had previously been co-author of "Macnaghten and Gordon's Reports" in the authorship of the reports of ''Cases in the Court of Appeal in Chancery'', known as "De Gex, Macnaghten, and Gordon's Reports", 1851–7, 8 vols. London. The series continued after Macnaghten ceased to report in collaboration, first with

Henry Cadman Jones Henry Cadman Jones (1818–1902) was an English law reporter. Life Born on 28 June 1818 at New Church in Winwick, Lancashire, he was eldest son of Joseph Jones, at the time vicar of Winwick and later of Repton, Derbyshire, by his wife Elizabeth ...

("De Gex and Jones's Reports", 1857–9, 2 vols. London), then with both Jones and F. Fisher ("De Gex, Fisher, and Jones's Reports", 1859–62, 4 vols. London), and finally with Cadman Jones and Richard Horton Smith ("De Gex, Jones, and Smith's Reports", 1863–5, 4 vols. London). In 1867 De Gex published, in conjunction with Horton Smith, ''Arrangements between Debtors and Creditors under the Bankruptcy Act, 1861'', London. The work consisted of a collection of precedents of deeds of arrangement, with an introduction and notes, and a digest of cases. A supplement appeared in 1868, and another in 1869.

Family

De Gex married in 1880 Alice Emma, eldest daughter of Sir John Henry Briggs.

Notes

;Attribution {{DEFAULTSORT:De Gex, John Peter 1809 births 1887 deaths English barristers English legal writers Alumni of Jesus College, Cambridge English people of Swiss descent Members of Lincoln's Inn Burials at Kensal Green Cemetery English male non-fiction writers 19th-century English lawyers