Sir Henry Cotton (20 May 1821 – 22 February 1892) was a British judge. He was a Lord Justice of Appeal from 1877, when he was made a Privy Counsellor, until his retirement in 1890.
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He was born in Leytonstone. His father William Cotton later became Governor of the Bank of England. His brother William Charles Cotton was a clergyman and apiarist.[1] His sister Sarah married Sir Henry Acland, who founded Acland Hospital in her memory.[2]
He attended Eton College, and later Christ Church, Oxford.
He entered Lincoln's Inn in 1843 and was called to the bar in 1846. He became QC in 1866. He became Lord Justice of Appeal in 1877 upon the death of Sir George Mellish.
He was an avid sportsman, having been an oarsman at Eton, and in later life a skater.
On August 16, 1853, he married Clemence Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Streatfeild.
His father's Wallwood estate was sold off posthumously in 1874, but Henry Cotton set aside and donated a plot of land upon which St. Andrew's Church in Leytonstone was built.[3][4]
His youngest son Hugh Benjamin Cotton (1871–1895) was featured in a Vanity Fair caricature on March 15, 1894 as president of the Oxford University Boat Club, but died of lung illness the following year in Davos-Platz, Switzerland.[5][6]
Through his grandfather Joseph Cotton (1746–1825), Henry Cotton was a cousin of the African explorer William Cotton Oswell and a first cousin once removed of Henry John Stedman Cotton.[7][8]