John Scott, 1st Earl of Eldon (4 June 1751 –
13 January 1838), Lord High
Chancellor of Great Britain, was born in Newcastle upon Tyne. His grandfather, William Scott of Sandgate, a
suburb of Newcastle, was clerk to a fitter, a sort of water-carrier and broker of coals. His father, whose name also was William,
began life as an apprentice to a fitter, in which service he obtained the freedom of Newcastle, becoming a member of the gild of
Hoastmen (coal-fitters); later in life he became a principal in the business, and attained a respectable position as a merchant
in Newcastle, accumulating property worth nearly £20,000.
Education
John Scott was educated at Newcastle upon Tyne Royal Grammar School.
He was not remarkable at school for application to his studies, though his wonderful memory enabled him to make good progress in
them; he frequently played truant and was whipped for it, robbed orchards, and indulged in other questionable schoolboy freaks;
nor did he always come out of his scrapes with honor and a character for truthfulness. When he had finished his education. at the
grammar school, his father thought of apprenticing him to his own business, to which an elder brother Henry had already devoted
himself; and it was only through the interference of his elder brother William (afterwards Lord Stowell), who had already obtained a fellowship at University College, Oxford, that it was ultimately resolved that he should continue the
prosecution of his studies. Accordingly, in 1766, John Scott entered University College with the
view of taking holy orders and obtaining a college living. In the year following he obtained a fellowship, graduated with a
Bachelor of Arts in 1770, and in 1771 won the prize for the English essay, the only university prize open in his time for general competition.
Elopement with Bessie Surtees
His wife was the eldest daughter of Aubone Surtees, a Newcastle banker. The Surtees family objected to the match, and
attempted to prevent it; but a strong attachment had sprung up between them. On 18 November
1772 Scott, with the aid of a ladder and an old friend, carried off the lady from her father's
house in the Sandhill, across the border to Blackshields, in Scotland, where they were married.
The father of the bridegroom objected not to his son's choice, but to the time he chose to marry; it was a blight on his sons
prospects, depriving him of his fellowship and his chance of church preferment. But while the bride's family refused to hold
intercourse with the pair, Mr Scott, like a prudent man and an affectionate father, set himself to make the best of a bad matter,
and received them kindly, settling on his son £2000. John returned with his wife to Oxford, and continued to hold his fellowship
for what is called the year of grace given after marriage, and added to his income by acting as a private tutor. After a time Mr
Surtees was reconciled with his daughter, and made a liberal settlement on her.
John Scott's year of grace closed without any college living falling vacant; and with his fellowship he gave up the church and
turned to the study of law. He became a student at the Middle Temple in January
1773. In 1776 he was called to the bar, intending at first to
establish himself as an advocate in his native town, a scheme which his early success led him to abandon, and he soon settled to
the practice of his profession in London, and on the northern circuit. In the autumn of the year in which he was called to the
bar his father died, leaving him a legacy of £1000 over and above the £2000 previously settled on him.
Professional life
In his second year at the bar his prospects began to brighten. His brother William, who by this time held the Camden
professorship of ancient history, and enjoyed an extensive acquaintance with men of eminence in London, was in a position
materially to advance his interests. Among his friends was the notorious Andrew Bowes of Gibside, to the patronage of whose house
the rise of the Scott family was largely owing. Bowes having contested Newcastle and lost it, presented an election petition
against the return of his opponent. Young Scott was retained as junior counsel in the case, and though he lost the petition he
did not fail to improve the opportunity which it afforded for displaying his talents. This engagement, in the commencement of his
second year at the bar, and the dropping in of occasional fees, must have raised his hopes; and he now abandoned the scheme of
becoming a provincial barrister. A year or two of dull drudgery and few fees followed, and he began to be much depressed. But in
1780 we find his prospects suddenly improved, by his appearance in the case of Ackroyd v.
Smithson, which became a leading case settling a rule of law; and young Scott, having lost his point in the inferior court,
insisted on arguing it, on appeal, against the opinion of his clients, and carried it before Lord Thurlow, whose favorable consideration he won by his able argument. The same year
Bowes again retained him in an election petition; and in the year following Scott greatly increased his reputation by his
appearance as leading counsel in the Clitheroe election petition. From this time his success was certain. In 1782, he obtained a silk gown, and was so far cured of his early modesty that he declined accepting the king's
counselship if precedence over him were given to his junior, Thomas
Erskine, though the latter was the son of a peer and a most accomplished orator. He was now on the high way to fortune.
His health, which had hitherto been but indifferent, strengthened with the demands made upon it; his talents, his power of
endurance, and his ambition all expanded together. He enjoyed a considerable practice in the northern part of his circuit, before
parliamentary committees and at the chancery bar. By 1787, his practice at the equity bar had so
far increased that he was obliged to give up the eastern half of his circuit (which embraced six counties) and attend it only at
Lancaster.
In 1782 he entered parliament for Lord Weymouth's close borough
of Weobley, which Lord Thurlow obtained for him without solicitation. In parliament he gave a general and independent support to
Pitt. His first parliamentary speeches were directed against Fox's India Bill. They were unsuccessful. In one he aimed at being
brilliant; and becoming merely labored and pedantic, he was covered with ridicule by Sheridan, from whom he received a lesson which he did not fail to turn to account. In
1788 he was appointed Solicitor
General, and was knighted, and at the close of this year he attracted attention by his speeches in support of Pitt's
resolutions on the state of the king (George III, who then labored
under a mental malady) and the delegation of his authority. It is said that he drew the Regency Bill, which was introduced in
1789. In 1793 Sir John Scott was promoted to the office of
Attorney-General, in which it fell to him to conduct the memorable prosecutions for
high treason against British sympathizers with French republicanism, amongst others, against the celebrated Horne Tooke. These prosecutions, in most cases, were no doubt instigated by Sir John Scott, and were
the most important proceedings in which he was ever professionally engaged. He has left on record, in his Anecdote Book, a
defence of his conduct in regard to them.
In 1799 the office of chief justice of the Court of Common Pleas falling vacant, Sir John Scott's claim to it was not overlooked;
and after seventeen years' service in the Lower House, he entered the House of Lords as
Baron Eldon. In February 1801 the ministry of Pitt was succeeded by that of Addington, and the chief justice now ascended the woolsack. The chancellorship
was given to him professedly on account of his notorious anti-Catholic zeal. From the Treaty
of Amiens (1802) till 1804 Lord Eldon appears to have
interfered little in politics. In the latter year we find him conducting the negotiations which resulted in the dismissal of
Addington and the recall of Pitt to office as prime minister. Lord Eldon was continued in office as chancellor under Pitt; but
the new administration was of short duration, for on 23 January 1806 Pitt died, worn out with the anxieties of office, and his ministry was succeeded by a coalition, under
Lord Grenville. The death of Fox, who became foreign secretary
and leader of the House of Commons, soon, however, broke up the Grenville administration; and in the spring of 1807 Lord Eldon once more, under the Duke of
Portland's administration, returned to the woolsack, which, from that time, he continued to occupy for about twenty years,
swaying the cabinet.
During this time Lord Eldon was revered for his work in consolidating equity into a
working body of legal principles. In Gee v. Pritchard[1] he wrote,
"Nothing would inflict on me greater pain in quitting this place, than the recollection that I had done anything to justify
the reproach that the equity of this court varies like the Chancellor's foot."[2]
It was not till April 1827, when the premiership, vacant through the paralysis of
Lord Liverpool, fell to Canning, the chief advocate of Roman Catholic emancipation, that Lord Eldon, in the seventy-sixth year of
his age, finally resigned the chancellorship. When, after the two short administrations of Canning and Goderich, it fell to the Duke of Wellington to construct a cabinet, Lord Eldon expected to be included,
if not as chancellor, at least in some important office, but he was overlooked, at which he was much chagrined. Notwithstanding
his frequent protests that he did not covet power, but longed for retirement, we find him again, so late as 1835, within three years of his death, in hopes of office under Peel. He spoke in parliament for the last time in
July 1834.
In 1821 Lord Eldon had been created Viscount Encombe and Earl of Eldon by
George IV, whom he managed to conciliate, partly, no doubt, by espousing
his cause against his wife, whose advocate he had formerly been, and partly
through his reputation for zeal against the Roman Catholics. In the same year his brother William, who from 1798 had filled the office of judge of the High Court of Admiralty, was
raised to the peerage under the title of Lord Stowell.
Lord Eldon was no legislator — his one aim in politics was to keep in office, and maintain things as he found them; and almost
the only laws he helped to pass were laws for popular coercion. For nearly forty years he fought against every improvement in law
or in the constitution, calling God to witness, on the smallest proposal of reform, that he foresaw from it the downfall of his
country. Without any political principles, properly so called, and without interest in or knowledge of foreign affairs, he
maintained himself and his party in power for an unprecedented period by his great tact, and in virtue of his two great political
properties of zeal against every species of reform, and zeal against the Roman Catholics. When he supported a Bill to abolish the
right of convicted criminals to apply for trial by combat — a right which was thought
obsolete but which a murderer recently applied for — it was remarked that this was the only reform he had ever supported in over
twenty years on the woolsack. To pass from his political to his judicial character is to shift
to ground on which his greatness is universally acknowledged. His judgments, which have received as much praise for their
accuracy as abuse for their clumsiness and uncouthness, fill a small library. But though intimately acquainted with every nook
and cranny of the English law, he never carried his studies into foreign fields, from which to enrich our legal literature; and
it must be added that against the excellence of his judgments, in too many cases, must be set off the hardships, worse than
injustice, that arose from his protracted delays in pronouncing them. A consummate judge and the narrowest of politicians, he was
doubt on the bench, and promptness itself in the political arena. For literature, as for art, he had no feeling. What intervals
of leisure he enjoyed from the cares of office he filled up with newspapers and the gossip of old cronies. Nor were his intimate
associates men of refinement and taste; they were rather good fellows who quietly enjoyed a good bottle and a joke; he uniformly
avoided encounters of wit with his equals. He is said to have been parsimonious, and certainly he was quicker to receive than to
reciprocate hospitalities; but his mean establishment and mode of life are explained by the retired habits of his wife, and her
dislike of company. His manners were very winning and courtly, and in the circle of his immediate relatives he is said to have
always been lovable and beloved.
Personal life and character
Lord Eldon's wife, his dear "Bessy," his love for whom is a beautiful feature in his life, died before him, on
28 June 1831. By nature she was of simple character, and by habits
acquired during the early portion of her husband's career almost a recluse. Two of their sons reached maturity: John, who died in
1805, and William Henry John, who died unmarried in 1832. Lord Eldon
himself survived almost all his immediate relations. His brother William died in 1836. He himself
died in London on 13 January 1838, leaving behind him two daughters, Lady Frances Bankes and Lady Elizabeth Repton, and a grandson John
(1805-1854), who succeeded him as second earl, the title subsequently passing to the latter's son John (b. 1846).
"In his person," says Lord Campbell, "Lord Eldon was about the middle size, his figure light and athletic, his features
regular and handsome, his eye bright and full, his smile remarkably benevolent, and his whole appearance prepossessing. The
advance of years rather increased than detracted from these personal advantages. As he sat on the judgment-seat, 'the deep
thought betrayed in his furrowed brow, the large eyebrows, overhanging eyes that seemed to regard more what was taking place
within than around him, his calmness, that would have assumed a character of sternness but for its perfect placidity, his
dignity, repose and venerable age, tended at once to win confidence and to inspire respect' (Townsend). He had a voice both sweet
and deep-toned, and its effect was not injured by his Northumbrian burr, which, though strong, was entirely free from harshness
and vulgarity."
There is a blue plaque on his house in Bedford
Square, London.
Footnotes
- ^ Gee v. Pritchard (1818) 2 Swans. 402
- ^ Gee v. Pritchard (1818) 2 Swans. 402, 414
Further reading
- Horace Twiss: Life of Lord Chancellor Eldon - 3 volumes 1844 London: John Murray Publishers
- Rose A. Melikan: John Scott, Lord Eldon, 1751-1838 The Duty of Loyalty - 1999 Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
- Anthony L.J. Lincoln & Robert Lindley McEwen (editors): Lord Eldon's Anecdote Book - 1960 London: Stevens & Sons
Ltd.
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