Biography

John Singleton Copley (1772-1863), Baron Lyndhurst, politician and lord chancellor, was born at Beacon Hill, Boston, Massachusetts, before the American War of Independence. Educated at a private school, Manor House, in Chiswick, Copley entered Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1790. Copley came into prominence in 1812 with his defence of one of the leading Luddites, John Ingham, who was indicted at the Nottingham assizes and charged with the capital offences of rioting and the destruction of machinery. He became a member for the borough of Yarmouth in the Isle of Wight, before being returned for Ashburton at the general election later the same year. In October 1819 he was knighted, and switched seats again in 1826 to the University of Cambridge. In February 1819 he became chief justice of Chester and king's serjeant and, in June of that year, solicitor-general. In January 1824 he succeeded Sir Robert Gifford as attorney-general, and in September 1826 Copley succeeded Gifford as master of the rolls. He was appointed lord chancellor (three times in total) and was raised to the peerage as Baron Lyndhurst of Lyndhurst in 1827, and then was offered the office of chief baron of the exchequer in 1830. Lyndhurst died on 12 October 1863 at his house, 25 George Street, Hanover Square, London.

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