Thomas Stockton (judge)

Thomas Stockton (1609–1674) was an English-born judge in seventeenth-century Ireland.

He was born at Cuddington Heath, Cheshire, son and heir of John Stockton, who was Lord of the Manor of Cuddington. The Stockton family suffered heavily for their loyalty to the Crown during the English Civil War, but recovered their estates after the Restoration of Charles II, when Thomas received high praise for his personal fidelity to the King.

He entered Gray's Inn in 1634 and became an Ancient of the Inn in 1658. He was called to the Bar in 1641. He went to Ireland in 1657, took up legal practice there and was admitted to the King's Inn. At the Restoration, his legal training together with his long and loyal service to the Crown made him an obvious choice for judicial office, and he was made third justice of the Court of King's Bench (Ireland). He went regularly on assize to Connaught and Ulster.

He died in Dublin in 1674 and was buried in St. Michael's Church, Dublin; it has been said that his body was later reinterred in the family tomb at St Oswald's Church, Malpas.

He married Ursula Moreton, who died in 1664. They had at least two children: John (died 1700), who inherited his father's estates, and Ursula (died 1720), who married firstly, as his third wife, her father's colleague Sir William Aston (died 1671), by whom she had one surviving son, Thomas, and secondly Sir Charles Fielding. She is said to have been very well provided for on her first husband's death, with a jointure of £300 a year. Her stepson, William Aston junior, was hanged for murder in 1686.

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