William Lee Biography
Sir William Lee PC (2 August 1688:– 8 April 1754) was a British jurist and politician.
Life
He was the second son of Sir Thomas Lee, 2nd Baronet. He matriculated at Wadham College, Oxford in 1704, shortly after entering the Middle Temple; he did not take a degree, but was called to the bar in 1710. Member of Parliament for Wycombe from 1727 until 1730, he gave up the seat when he became a Justice of the King's Bench.
Lee was Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales from 8 June 1737 until his sudden death in 1754. He was appointed formally as Chancellor of the Exchequer as a temporary expedient on 8 March 1754, when Henry Pelham died, with his brother Sir George Lee as Under Treasurer of the Exchequer, until 6 April, his own death.
Lord Campbell noted that Lee "certainly stood up for the rights of woman more strenuously than any English judge before or since his time".
Notes
References
- J. C. D. Clark, The Dynamics of Change: The Crisis of the 1750s and English Party Systems (Cambridge University Press, 2002).
- Lord Campbell, The Lives of the Chief Justices of England: Volume III (*croft and Co, 1878).
