Lyndhurst, John Singleton Copley, Baron, 1772–1863, British jurist, b. Boston, Mass.; son of John Singleton Copley, the American painter. Educated in England, he was called to the bar in 1804. He attained notice by his successful defense of Arthur Thistlewood and James Watson (1817). He entered (1818) Parliament, became solicitor general (1819), attorney general (1824), and master of the rolls (1826). Between 1827 and 1846 he was three times lord chancellor. Although he defended radicals earlier in his career, in political life he was a Tory and a leader of his party in the House of Lords.
See biography by Sir Theodore Martin (1883).
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