Thomas Denison

Sir Thomas Denison (1699 - September 8, 1765) was a British judge.

Born in Leeds, Denison's father William was a clothier described as "an opulent merchant at Leeds".[1] Denison, the younger of two sons, was educated at the Leeds Grammar School, and entered the Inner Temple in 1718 to receive his legal education; he was thereafter called to the bar.[2]

He was successful as a lawyer, and December 1741,[2] he was appointed to succeed Sir Francis Page on the Court of the King's Bench, taking office on February 16, 1742.[1] He served in that capacity for over twenty-three years, under chief justices, Sir William Lee, Sir Dudley Ryder, and Lord Mansfield, resigning on February 14, 1765 due to poor health and failing eyesight.[1]

He died in September of that year, and was buried in Harewood in Yorkshire.[2][1] Per his instruction, Denison was buried next to admired former Chief Justice Gascoigne; a memorial was erected in his honor with an inscription by his closest friend, Lord Mansfield.[2]

Denison had no children. His wife, Anne, daughter of Robert Smithson, Esq., died twenty years later, and his estate passed to his wife's grand-niece, who married Edmund the fifth son of Sir John Beckett, Bart. who then assumed the name of Denison.[1] Denison's grand-nephew, John Evelyn Denison, would become speaker of the House of Commons in the 1800s.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 Edward Foss, The Judges of England, With Sketches of Their Lives (1864), Volume 8, p. 266-268.
  2. 1 2 3 4 Richard Vickerman Taylor, The Biographia Leodiensis: Or, Biographical Sketches of the Worthies of Leeds and Neighbourhood (1865), p.169-170.

External links

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