Paul Dudley FRS (September 3, 1675 – January 25, 1751),

Attorney-General In most common law jurisdictions, the attorney general or attorney-general (sometimes abbreviated AG or Atty.-Gen) is the main legal advisor to the government. The plural is attorneys general. In some jurisdictions, attorneys general also have exec ...

of the

Province of Massachusetts Bay The Province of Massachusetts Bay was a colony in British America which became one of the thirteen original states of the United States. It was chartered on October 7, 1691, by William III and Mary II, the joint monarchs of the kingdoms of ...

, was the son of colonial governor

Joseph Dudley Joseph Dudley (September 23, 1647 – April 2, 1720) was a colonial administrator, a native of Roxbury in Massachusetts Bay Colony, and the son of one of its founders. He had a leading role in the administration of the Dominion of New England ...

and grandson of one of the colony's founders,

Thomas Dudley Thomas Dudley (12 October 157631 July 1653) was a New England colonial magistrate who served several terms as governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Dudley was the chief founder of Newtowne, later Cambridge, Massachusetts, and built the tow ...

. Dudley was born in

Roxbury, Massachusetts Roxbury () is a neighborhood within the City of Boston, Massachusetts. Roxbury is a dissolved municipality and one of 23 official neighborhoods of Boston used by the city for neighborhood services coordination. The city states that Roxbury se ...

in 1675. After graduating from the

Roxbury Latin School The Roxbury Latin School is a private boys' day school that was founded in 1645 in the town of Roxbury (now a neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts) by the Rev. John Eliot under a charter received from King Charles I of England. It bills ...

and then, at the age of 15, from Harvard in 1690, he studied

law Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior,Robertson, ''Crimes against humanity'', 90. with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been vario ...

at the

Temple A temple (from the Latin ) is a building reserved for spiritual rituals and activities such as prayer and sacrifice. Religions which erect temples include Christianity (whose temples are typically called churches), Hinduism (whose temples ...

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

, and became

Attorney General of Massachusetts The Massachusetts Attorney General is an elected constitutionally defined executive officer of the Massachusetts Government. The officeholder is the chief lawyer and law enforcement officer of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The officeholder al ...

from 1702 to 1718. He was

associate justice Associate justice or associate judge (or simply associate) is a judicial panel member who is not the chief justice in some jurisdictions. The title "Associate Justice" is used for members of the Supreme Court of the United States and some sta ...

of the province's highest court, the

Superior Court of Judicature The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) is the court of last resort, highest court in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Although the claim is disputed by the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, the SJC claims the di ...

, from 1718 to 1745, and chief justice from 1745 until his death in January 1751. He was a member of the

Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...

, to whose '' Transactions'' he contributed several valuable papers on the natural history of

New England New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York (state), New York to the west and by the Can ...

, as well as the founder of the Dudleian lectures on religion at

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...

. Dudley was an investor in the

Equivalent Lands The Equivalent Lands were several large tracts of land that the Province of Massachusetts Bay made available to settlers from the Connecticut Colony after April 1716. This was done as compensation for an equivalent area of territory that was under ...

. Along with his brother, William, he was the first proprietor and namesake of

Dudley, Massachusetts Dudley is a town in Worcester County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 11,921 at the 2020 census. History Dudley was first settled in 1714 and was officially incorporated in 1732. The town was named for landholders Paul and Will ...

. In 1705, Dudley was recorded as owning an enslaved boy, and he acquired another slave in 1745 named Guinea.https://radcliffe-harvard-edu-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/3d37f30c-a266-4be8-bd4b-234dca08497f/AppendixI-ListofHumanBeingsEnslavedbyProminentHarvardAffiliates.pdf Dudley died in Roxbury, and is buried in the Eliot Burying Ground next to his father and grandfather.

References

1675 births 1751 deaths American slave owners Burials in Boston Fellows of the Royal Society Harvard University alumni Justices of the Massachusetts Superior Court of Judicature Lawyers from Boston Massachusetts Attorneys General People from Roxbury, Boston Roxbury Latin School alumni Writers from Boston {{US-law-bio-stub