Sir James Lewis Knight-Bruce, (born James Lewis Knight; 15 February 1791 – 7 November 1866) was an English barrister, judge and politician.
Life
He was the youngest son of John Knight of
Fairlinch,
Devon, by Margaret, daughter and heiress of William Bruce of
Llanblethian,
Glamorgan
, HQ = Cardiff
, Government = Glamorgan County Council (1889–1974)
, Origin=
, Code = GLA
, CodeName = Chapman code
, Replace =
* West Glamorgan
* Mid Glamorgan
* South Glamorgan
, Motto ...
. He was born at
Barnstaple
Barnstaple ( or ) is a river-port town in North Devon, England, at the River Taw's lowest crossing point before the Bristol Channel. From the 14th century, it was licensed to export wool and won great wealth. Later it imported Irish wool, bu ...
on 15 February 1791, and was educated at
King Edward's grammar school, Bath
King Edward's School (KES), Bath, Somerset, England is an independent co-educational day school providing education for 1,016 pupils aged 3 to 18.
The school is a member of The Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference.
The school was establis ...
, and at
Sherborne. He left Sherborne in 1805, and, after spending two years with a mathematical tutor, was articled to a solicitor in
Lincoln's Inn Fields. When his articles had expired, he was admitted a student of
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 21 July 1812.
On 21 November 1817 Knight 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 ...
, and for a short time went the Welsh circuit. The increase of his
chancery
Chancery may refer to:
Offices and administration
* Chancery (diplomacy), the principal office that houses a diplomatic mission or an embassy
* Chancery (medieval office), responsible for the production of official documents
* Chancery (Scotlan ...
practice soon caused him to abandon the common law bar, and he confined himself to practising in the equity courts. In Michaelmas term 1829 he was 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 on 6 November in the same year was elected a bencher of Lincoln's Inn. On taking silk he selected the vice-chancellor's court, where
Sir Edward Sugden
Edward Burtenshaw Sugden, 1st Baron Saint Leonards, (12 February 178129 January 1875) was a British lawyer, judge and Conservative politician.
Background
Sugden was the son of a high-class hairdresser and wig-maker in Westminster, London. Detai ...
was the leader; they had constant contests until Sugden's appointment 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 ...
in 1834.
In politics Knight was a Tory, and in April 1831 he was returned for
Bishop's Castle, a
pocket borough
A rotten or pocket borough, also known as a nomination borough or proprietorial borough, was a parliamentary borough or constituency in England, Great Britain, or the United Kingdom before the Reform Act 1832, which had a very small electorat ...
belonging to
Edward Clive, 1st Earl of Powis. His parliamentary career, however, was short, for the borough was disfranchised by the
Great Reform Bill. In 1834 he received the honorary degree of D.C.L. from the
University of Oxford. In 1835 he was one of the counsel heard at the bar of the
House of Lords on behalf of the municipal corporations against the
Municipal Reform Bill
The Municipal Corporations Act 1835 (5 & 6 Will 4 c 76), sometimes known as the Municipal Reform Act, was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that reformed local government in the incorporated boroughs of England and Wales. The legisl ...
, and in 1851 on behalf of the deans and chapters against the