page_title: William Murray, 1st Earl of Mansfield
section_title: Legacy
hierarchical_section_title: William Murray, 1st Earl of Mansfield / Legacy
caption_attribution_description: English: Portrait of Sir Francis Buller, 1st Baronet
context_page_description: William Murray, 1st Earl of Mansfield, PC, SL was a British barrister, politician and judge noted for his reform of English law. Born to Scottish nobility, he was educated in Perth, Scotland, before moving to London at the age of 13 to take up a place at Westminster School. He was accepted into Christ Church, Oxford, in May 1723, and graduated four years later. Returning to London from Oxford, he was called to the Bar by Lincoln's Inn on 23 November 1730, and quickly gained a reputation as an excellent barrister.
  He became involved in politics in 1742, beginning with his election as a Member of Parliament for Boroughbridge, now in West Yorkshire, and appointment as Solicitor General. In the absence of a strong Attorney General, he became the main spokesman for the government in the House of Commons, and was noted for his "great powers of eloquence" and described as "beyond comparison the best speaker" in the House of Commons. With the promotion of Sir Dudley Ryder to Lord Chief Justice in 1754, he became Attorney General, and when Ryder unexpectedly died several months later, he took his place as Chief Justice.
context_section_description: English law saw significant changes during Mansfield's career. As lord chief justice, Mansfield had done much to reform the way the courts worked, making it easier for people to gain access to legal aid, and also making the process much less expensive. He was also noted for his insistence that equity should be applied by all courts, not just the Court of Chancery, a view that provoked much disagreement during his lifetime, but was eventually confirmed by Parliament in the Supreme Court of Judicature Act 1873, which allowed all courts to take cases of equity. He also established the principle that rather than blindly following precedent, judges should seek to find loopholes in rules that were no longer applicable, something that later received the support of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., who said, "It is revolting to have no better reason for a rule of law than that so it was laid down in the time of Henry IV. It is more revolting still if the grounds upon which it was laid down have vanished long since, and the rule simply persists from blind imitation of the past." He made his judgements on the principle that "as the usages of society alter, the law must adapt itself to the various situations of mankind", leading John Baker to describe him as "one of the boldest of judicial spirits".
  His most important contributions were to commercial, merchant and common law. Mansfield spent much time bringing the law of England on par with that of other countries, particularly in cases such as Pillans & Rose v Van Mierop & Hopkins [1765] 3 Burr 1663, and Carter v Boehm [1766] 3 Burr 1905. As a result of his work, he was described by a later judge as "the founder of the commercial law of this country".
  He was, however, criticised for his resistance to the freedom of the press and his refusal to go against the King, as well as for blatant nepotism—highlighted by his attempts to have Francis Buller made Lord Chief Justice after his retirement. He was also criticised as a politician for his support of a government antagonistic to the colonies; in 1829 John Quincy Adams described him as "more responsible for the Revolution than any other man". Scholars such as John Chipman Gray have questioned his reputation as a universally successful judge, saying that "the reputation of Lord Mansfield as a commercial lawyer should not blind us to the fact that he was not equally great in the law of real property".
  Opinion over Mansfield's intention in his ruling in Somerset's Case is mixed, with the current prevailing view being that he did not intend to free the slaves. The judgment was particularly narrow, as it ruled only that a master could not carry his slave out of England by force, not that slaves who came to England were emancipated. This is seen as particularly telling because this was the primary argument of Davy and Hargrave. If Murray had wanted to emancipate the slaves completely, there were various bits of judicial precedent he could have based his decision on, such as Smith v Gould or Shanley v Harvey, but he did not. Various comments he made before and during the case also suggest that complete emancipation was not his intent; in a preliminary judgment he said that "the setting 14,000 or 15,000 men at once free loose by a solemn opinion, is much disagreeable in the effect it threatens", which one modern legal scholar interprets as indicative of his reluctance to make a decision for fear of economic consequences. Various comments he made to Thomas Hutchinson in private letters, along with his comments about the Somersett decision in R v Inhabitants of Thames Ditton also suggest that emancipation was not his goal. In 1785, Lord Mansfield expressed the view in R v Inhabitants of Thames Ditton that his ruling in the Somerset case decided only that a slave could not be forcibly removed from England against his will.
  Mansfield's marriage to Lady Finch was barren. His title, which succeeds to this day, passed to his nephew, David Murray, 2nd Earl of Mansfield.
caption: Sir Francis Buller, whom Mansfield tried to make Lord Chief Justice after his retirement.
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