James Parke, 1st Baron Wensleydale

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

James Parke, Baron Wensleydale (22 March 178225 February 1868) was an English judge, born near Liverpool.

[edit] Career

He was educated at The King's School, Macclesfield and Trinity College, Cambridge. He had a brilliant career at the university, winning the Craven scholarship, Sir William Browne's gold medal, and being fifth wrangler and senior chancellor's medallist in classics.

Called to the bar at the Inner Temple he rapidly acquired an excellent common law practice and in 1828 was raised to the king's bench, while still of the junior bar. In 1834 he was transferred from the king's bench to the court of exchequer, where for some twenty years he exercised considerable influence. The changes introduced by the Common Law Procedure Acts of 1854 and 1855 proved too much for his legal conservatism and he resigned in December of the latter year.

The government under Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston, anxious to have his services as a law lord, proposed to confer on him a life peerage, but this was opposed by the House of Lords, and he was eventually created a hereditary peer (1856). He died at his residence, Ampthill Park, Bedfordshire. Since he had outlived his three sons, the title became extinct.

[edit] Marriage and children

On 8 April 1817, Parke married Cecilia Arabella Frances Barlow (c. 1794 - 10 May 1879). Though their sons died young, the Parkes were parents to three daughters with further descendants.

[edit] References