Mansfield, William Murray, 1st Earl of (1705-1793)

Scottish judge. He became MP for Boroughbridge and solicitor-general (1742), attorney-general (1754), and Lord Chief Justice of the king's bench (1756). He retired from office in 1788 after introducing reforms in mercantile law, the law of evidence, and the procedure of courts.

He was born in Scone, Perthshire, and educated at Westminster School and Christ Church, Oxford. He was called to the Bar (1730) and became KC (1742). He became a serjeant-at-law and created Baron Mansfield (1756). He was attacked in 1767 for refusing to prosecute under the penal law of 1700 which made celebration of Mass by a Roman Catholic priest punishable by life imprisonment. He further increased his unpopularity by his conduct in the case of John Wilkes (1768), and by his directions to the jury in three cases of seditious libel after the publication and sale of Junius's letter to the King (1770). In 1776 he became Earl of Mansfield. His house in Bloomsbury Square was sacked and burnt during the Gordon riots (1780) and he was forced to flee to his country house at Kenwood. As a parliamentary debater he was considered second only to William Pitt.