LYNDHURST, John Singleton Copley, Baron (1772-1863), four times lord chancellor of England, was born at Boston, New England, in 1772. His father, son of an Englishman, but also a native of Boston, was a painter of very considerable note, who settled in London just before the commencement of the war of American independence. The son studied at Cambridge, where he was second wrangler and fellow of Trinity. Called to the bar in 1804, he gained a considerable practice; but it was not till 1817 that he began to come to the front. In that year he' was one of the counsel for Dr Watson, tried for his share in the Spa Fields riot. On this occasion Copley so distinguished himself as to attract the attention of Castlereagh and other Tory leaders, under whose patronage he entered parliament, and was advanced to the highest legal positions, becoming solicitor-general in 1819, attorneygeneral in 1824, and lord chancellor in 1827, with the title of Lord Lyndhurst. Before being thus taken up by the Tories, Copley was a man of the most advanced views, a republican and Jacobin; and his accession to the Tories naturally excited a good deal of comment, which he bore with the greatest good humour. He gave a brilliant and eloquent but by no means rancorous support to all the reactionary measures of his chief. The same year that he became solicitor-general he married a fashionable wife, and began to take a conspicuous place in society, in which his noble figure, his ready wit, and his never-failing bonhomie made him a distinguished favourite....
As solicitor-general he took a prominent part in the trial of Queen Caroline. To the great Liberal measures which marked the end of the reign of George IV. and the beginning of that of William IV. he gave a vigorous opposition. During the Melbourne administration from 1835 to 1841 he figured conspicuously as an obstructionist from his seat in the House of Lords. In these years it was a frequent practice with him, before each prorogation of parliament, to entertain the House with a “review of the session,” in which he mercilessly attacked the Whig Government. His former adversary Lord Brougham, now ineffably disgusted at his treatment by the Whig leaders, soon became his most powerful ally in opposition; and the two dominated the House of Lords. Throughout all the Tory Governments from 1827 Lyndhurst held the chancellorship; and in the Peel administration (1841-46) he resumed that office for the fourth and last time. As Peel never had much confidence in Lyndhurst, the latter did not exert so great an influence in the cabinet as his position and experience entitled him to do. But he continued a loyal member of the party. As in regard to Catholic emancipation, so in the agitation against the corn laws, he opposed reform till his chief gave the signal for concession, and then he cheerfully obeyed. After 1846 and the disintegration of the Tory party consequent on Peel’s adoption of free trade, Lord Lyndhurst was not so assiduous in his attendance in parliament. Yet he continued to an extreme old age to take a lively interest in public affairs, and occasionally to astonish the country by the power and brilliancy of his speeches. That which he made in 1853, in denunciation of the aggressive policy of the Russian emperor Nicholas, made a sensation in Europe; throughout the Russian war he was a strong advocate of the energetic prosecution of hostilities. In 1859 he denounced with his old energy the restless ambition of Napoleon III. When he was released from the trammels of an official position, he came forward somewhat as the advocate of liberal measures. He strenuously supported the admission of Jews into parliament; his second wife was a Jewess. Under the influence of Mrs Norton he appeared also as the advocate of women’s rights in questions of divorce. At the age of eighty-four he passed the autumn at Dieppe, “helping to fly paper kites, and amusing himself by turns with the writings.of the Greek and Latin fathers on divorce and the amorous novels of Eugene Sue.” His last speech, marked by “his wonted brilliancy and vigour,” was delivered in the House of Lords at the age of eighty-nine. He died in 1863, in his ninety-second year. The impression we have of Lyndhurst from Lord Campbell’s memoir is that of a man with rather an easy conscience in political life, not too scrupulous in his attention to judicial duties, but possessed of a fine and noble presence, a ready wit, an unfailing sweetness of temper, and a real kindness and charm of manner that won the hearts of men.
See Lives of the Lord Chancellors of England, vol. viii. (Lords Lyndhurst and Brougham), by Lord Campbell, 1869. Campbell was a personal friend, but a political opponent.
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