James Scarlett, 1st Baron Abinger (13 December 1769 – 17 April 1844) was a British lawyer, politician and judge.
Early life
James Scarlett was born in the British colony of Jamaica, where his father, Robert Scarlett, owned slave plantations. In the summer of 1785 he was sent to England to complete his education at Hawkshead Grammar School and afterwards at Trinity College, Cambridge, taking his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1789. Having entered the Inner Temple he took the advice of Samuel Romilly, studied law on his own for a year, and then was taught by George Wood. He was called to the bar in 1791, and joined the northern circuit and the Lancashire sessions.
Legal and political career
Though Scarlett had no professional connections, he gradually obtained a large practice, ultimately confining himself to the Court of King's Bench and the northern circuit. He took silk in 1816, and from this time till the close of 1834 he was the most successful lawyer at the bar; he was particularly effective before a jury, and his income reached £18,500, a large sum for that period. He first entered parliament in 1819 as Whig member for Peterborough, representing that constituency with a short break (1822–1823) till 1830, when he was elected for the borough of Malton. He became Attorney General, and was made a Knight Bachelor when Canning formed his ministry in 1827; and though he resigned when the Duke of Wellington came into power in 1828, he resumed office in 1829 and went out with the Duke in 1830. He was raised to the peerage as Baron Abinger, of Abinger in the County of Surrey and of the City of Norwich in 1835, taking his title from the Surrey estate he had bought in 1813. The qualities which brought him success at the bar were not equalled on the bench; he had a reputation for unfairness, and complaints were made about his domineering attitude towards juries.
A more distant relation was the painter John Scarlett Davis.
Cases
- Fouldes v. Willoughby (1841)
Property
In 1836, Scarlett was awarded compensation of £626 2s 2d for 30 slaves on the Spring Grove estate in Manchester, Jamaica.