Salathiel Lovell

Sir Salathiel Lovell (1631/2–1713) was an English judge, Recorder of London, an ancient and bencher of Grey's Inn, and a Baron of the Exchequer.

Origins and education

Lovell was the son of Benjamin Lovell, rector of Lapworth, Warwickshire, and brother of Robert Lovell, and was born in 1631 or 1632. Aside from his religious calling, his father was a parliamentarian in the English Civil War, serving for a time under Colonel William Purefoy, one of the regicides of King Charles I of England.cite web | last =Wales | first =Tim | title =Lovell, Sir Salathiel (1631/2–1713), judge | work =Oxford Dictionary of National Biography online edition | publisher =Oxford University Press | date =Sept 2004 | url =http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/17064 | accessdate =2008-06-19 ]

Salathiel Lovell was accepted into Grey's Inn to read for the Bar in 1648. He worked as a clerk in Buckinghamshire, and as one of the parish trustees of parish lands in Lapworth, before being called to the bar in November 1656.cite web | last =Hamilton | first =J. A. | title =Lovell, Sir Salathiel (1619–1713), judge | work =Dictionary of National Biography Vol. XXXIV | publisher =Smith, Elder & Co. | date =1893 | url =http://www.oxforddnb.com/templates/olddnb.jsp?articleid=17064 | accessdate =2008-06-18 ]

Career

He had moved to Northampton by 1661, as evidenced by baptism records for a son, also called Salathiel; was active in the factional politics of the town, and was relied upon as a legal authority, becoming the deputy recorder of the town. He was active, too, within Grey's Inn, being appointed an ancient of the inn (a junior official role) in 1671 and six years later a bencher, or member of the controlling committee of the Inn.

Lovell clearly accommodated himself to the changing post-restoration times, but was suspected of radical whig politics by reason of his alleged involvement, in 1684, in the promulgation of an attack on acquiescence to the concept of the divine rights of kings. In the same year he was counsel for William Sacheverell, a prominent whig, who with others was indicted for a riot at an election for the mayoralty of Nottingham.

In June 1688 he became a serjeant-at-law, and four years later he was a candidate against James Selby for the recordership of London. Each candidate obtained twelve votes, and Lovell was elected by the casting vote of the Lord Mayor.

On 22 October 1692 he carried up an address of congratulation to William III of England at Kensington Palace on his return from abroad, and an invitation to a banquet at the Guildhall on Lord Mayor's Day, and was thereupon knighted. In 1695, on 24 May, the first day of term, he was called within the bar as king's serjeant, and in the following year became a judge on the Welsh circuit. He continued to be principally occupied with the administration of the criminal law, and in 1700 he petitioned the crown for a grant of the forfeited estate of Joseph Horton of Cotton Abbotts in Cheshire, on the ground that he had been more diligent in the discovery and conviction of criminals than any other person in the kingdom, and that he had been a loser by it, his post being worth but £80 a year with few perquisites, and usually being regarded as a mere stepping-stone to a judgeship in Westminster Hall.

In June 1700, when the retirement of Baron Lechmere as a Baron of the Exchequer was expected, Lovell was looked on as his successor, but he continued without reward until ultimately the land in question was granted to him, and on 17 June 1708, at the age of 76, he was appointed a fifth baron of the exchequer. He had resigned his Welsh judgeship in the previous year, and now vacated the recordership.

Judicial reputation

Lovell sat on the bench for five years, but was old and incompetent. He was ‘distinguished principally for his want of memory, and his title of recorder was converted into the nickname of the Obliviscor (forgetter) of London'.

Lovell's grandson, Richard Lovell Edgeworth, in his memoirs, provides an impression of Salathiel:

:"My grandfather, the Welsh judge, travelling over the sands near Beaumorris, as he was going circuit, was overtaken by the night and by the tide: his coach was set fast in quicksand; the water soon rose into the coach, and his register, and some other attendants, crept out of the windows and mounted on the roof, and on the coach-box. The judge let the water rise to his very lips, and with becoming gravity replied, to all the earnest entreaties of his attendants, 'I will follow your counsel, if you can quote any precedent for a judge's mounting a coach-box'"" [http://books.google.com/books?id=NKMDAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA18 Memoirs of Richard Lovell Edgeworth, Esq.] " by Richard Lovell Edgeworth and Maria Edgeworth, Volume 1, 1821]

Referring to the extent to which Lovell, by the end of his life, had lost his memory, Edgeworth relates an anecdote told by his father of a lawyer pleading before Lovell being so rude as to say "Sir, you have forgotten the law", to which Lovell is reputed to have answered "Young man, I have forgotten more law, than you will ever remember".

Family and posterity

Lovell was married some time before 1661 to Mary; the couple had some ten sons and four daughters. He died 3 May 1713. A son, Samuel, became a Welsh judge; but only one of the sons outlived Salathiel.

References

Notes

*DNB