The Right Honourable The Lord Thurlow PC
Portrait of Lord Thurlow byThomas Lawrence, 1803
Lord Chancellor Lord High Steward for thetrial of: List Warren Hastings
In office 3 June 1778 – 7 April 1783
Monarch	George III
Prime Minister	The Lord North The Marquess of Rockingham The Earl of Shelburne
Preceded by	The Earl Bathurst
Succeeded by	In Commission
In office 23 December 1783 – 15 June 1792
Monarch	George III
Prime Minister	William Pitt the Younger
Preceded by	In Commission
Succeeded by	In Commission
Member of Parliament forTamworth
In office 1765–1778
Preceded by	Viscount Villiers
Succeeded by	Anthony Chamier
Personal details
Born	(1731-12-09)9 December 1731
Died	12 September 1806(1806-09-12) (aged 74)
Nationality	English
Political party	Tories

Edward Thurlow, 1st Baron Thurlow,PC (9 December 1731 – 12 September 1806), was a British lawyer andTory politician who sat in theHouse of Commons from 1765 to 1778 when he was raised to thepeerage asBaron Thurlow. He served asLord High Chancellor of Great Britain for fourteen years and under four Prime Ministers.

Born at Bracon Ash,Norfolk, Thurlow was the eldest son of Reverend Thomas Thurlow.Thomas Thurlow,Bishop of Durham, was his brother. He studied atKing's School, Canterbury and atGonville and Caius College, Cambridge.^[1] However, he was forced to leave Cambridge in 1751 without a degree after coming into conflict with the authorities of the university. He was for some time articled to a solicitor inLincoln's Inn, but in 1754 he was called to the Bar,Inner Temple. After a slow start, Thurlow eventually established a successful legal practice. He was made aKing's Counsel in 1761 and was elected abencher of the Inner Temple in 1762.^[2]

Thurlow then turned to politics, and in 1768 he was elected Member of Parliament forTamworth as aTory. Two years later, as a recognition of his defence the previous January of the expulsion ofJohn Wilkes he was appointedSolicitor-General in the government ofLord North.^[2] He held this post for a little under a year, chiefly involved in the prosecution of libels and limitations on the freedom of the press, until he was promoted toAttorney General in January 1771. He was to remain in this office for seven years, during which period he became known as an ardent opponent of the American colonists' strive forindependence. He is noted for his defeat in the case ofWoodfall, who was publisher of theLetters of Junius, upon which a verdict of mistrial was entered byLord Mansfield.

In 1778 Thurlow was admitted to thePrivy Council, raised to the peerage asBaron Thurlow, of Ashfield in the County of Suffolk,^[3] and appointedLord Chancellor byLord North, taking his seat on 14 July 1778. In this post he notably opposed the economical and constitutional reforms proposed byEdmund Burke andJohn Dunning. The Tory administration of Lord North fell in March 1782, after twelve years in office. TheWhigs underLord Rockingham came to power, but Thurlow managed to cling on as Lord Chancellor. Rockingham died in July 1782, but Thurlow remained Lord Chancellor also whenLord Shelburne became prime minister. The latter government fell in April 1783, when a coalition government underCharles James Fox and Lord North was formed (with theDuke of Portland as titular prime minister). Thurlow was not invited to resume the role of Lord Chancellor, and instead theGreat Seal was put into commission. He went into opposition and contributed to the downfall of the coalition in December 1783.William Pitt the Younger became prime minister and reinstated Thurlow as Lord Chancellor. The relationship between Pitt and Thurlow was always fragile, and Thurlow often relied on his friendship with KingGeorge III to be able to remain in office. He opposed a bill for the restoration to the heirs of estates forfeited in theJacobite rising of 1745. Partly to please the king, he consistently and strongly supportedWarren Hastings, and negotiated with theWhigs to ensure his continued power in the event of a change of government. In 1792, when he attacked Pitt's bill to establish a fund to redeem the national debt, he was finally dismissed.^[2]

As a way of compensation, Thurlow was given a secondpeerage asBaron Thurlow, of Thurlow in the County of Suffolk, with remainder to his three nephews and their heirs male.^[4] He was never to hold office again and retired into private life. However, in 1797 he intrigued for the formation of a government from which Pitt and Fox should be excluded, and in which theEarl of Moira should be prime minister and himself Lord Chancellor.^[2] Despite the tacit support of thePrince of Wales the enterprise failed. His last recorded appearance in the House of Lords was in 1802.^[2]

Thomas Creevey described Thurlow towards the end of his life:

Thurlow was always dressed in a full suit of cloaths of the old fashion, great cuffs and massy buttons, great wig, long ruffles, &c.; the black eyebrows exceeded in size any I have ever seen, and his voice, tho' by no means devoid of melody, was a kind of rolling, murmuring thunder. He had great reading, particularly classical, and was a very distinguished, as well as mostdaring, converser.^[5]

Thurlow had a number of illegitimate children^[6] Two of his daughters, Caroline and Catharine, had their portrait painted byGeorge Romney in 1783. Catharine, who died in 1826, marriedAlexander Fraser, 17th Lord Saltoun, in 1815.^[7] Another daughter Maria, who died in 1816, marriedColonel Sir David Cunynghame of Milncraig, 5th Baronet, in 1801, and had several children.^[8]

Lord Thurlow never married, but left three natural daughters. He died atBrighton on 12 September 1806, aged 76, and was buried in the Temple Church.^[2] The barony of 1778 became extinct on his death, while he was succeeded in the barony of 1792 according to the special remainder by his nephewEdward, who was the eldest son of the first baron's brother, Right Reverend Thomas Thurlow,Bishop of Durham.

The Life ofMiss Anne Catley cites that Edward Thurlow "paid her some occasional visits" but that she was "disappointed; that gentleman already [was] provided with a favourite."

Thurlow appears as a character inAlan Bennett's playThe Madness of George III and the subsequentfilm adaptation, in which he was played byJohn Wood.

John Poynder'sLiterary Extracts (1844) attributes to Thurlow the following widely quoted saying:^[9]

Corporations have neither bodies to be punished, nor souls to be condemned; they therefore do as they like.

• Honora Jenkins' will

• Rigg, James McMullen (1898)."Thurlow, Edward (1731-1806)" . InLee, Sidney (ed.).Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 56. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
• Renton, Alexander Wood (1911)."Thurlow, Edward Thurlow, 1st Baron" . InChisholm, Hugh (ed.).Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 26 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 903–904. Endnotes:
  • Lord Campbell'sLives of the Chancellors, vii. 153–333
  • Foss'sJudges of England, viii. 374–385
  • Public Characters (1798)
  • Notes and Queries, 2nd series, vol. iii. p. 283; 3rd series, vol. iii. p. 122
  • Reports of his decisions by Brown, Dickens and Vesey (jun.)
  • Brougham'sStatesmen of the Time of George III.
• Ditchfield, G. M. "Thurlow, Edward, first Baron Thurlow (1731–1806)".Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press.doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/27406. (Subscription,Wikipedia Library access orUK public library membership required.)

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• 1731 births
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