Sir Samuel Romilly (1 March 1757 – 2 November 1818) was a British lawyer, Whig politician, abolitionist and legal reformer. Born in London of French Huguenot descent, he was largely self-educated and escaped poverty through a fortuitous inheritance that allowed travel. From a background in the commercial world, Romilly became well-connected, and rose to public office as [[Solicitor General for England and Wales] (1806–1807) and a prominent position in Parliament, where he sat for Horsham (1807–1808), Wareham (1808–1812), Arundel (1812–1818), and finally Westminster (July 1818 until his death).

After an early interest in radical politics, he built a career in chancery cases, and then turned to reform of British criminal law and abolition of the slave trade. The grandson of refugees, he became known as a "friend of the oppressed". Yet few of his ambitions were achieved during his lifetime, which was cut short in 1818, when, despondent after the death of his wife, he died by suicide, leaving criminal law "in the same state as he had found it when he embarked upon his work of amelioration". He was an early campaigner against the death penalty, which was partially realised on the bicentennial of his birth with the Homicide Act 1957.

His eldest son, John, was Attorney General for England and Wales and was ennobled as Baron Romilly in 1866. Three other sons, Frederick Romilly, Edward Romilly, and Charles Romilly, were first-class cricketers.

Early life

Family origin

Romilly was born on Frith Street in Soho, London, into a French-speaking Huguenot family who had fled France after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. He was the second surviving son of Pierre (Peter) Romilly, a watchmaker and jeweller, and his wife, Marguerite (Margaret) Garnault, daughter of Aymé Garnault, another Huguenot jeweller, whose father left Châtellerault in Poitou. Isaac Romilly was his father's elder brother.

His paternal grandfather, Étienne (Stephen) Romilly, emigrated from Montpellier to Hoxton in 1701 via Geneva. He married Judith de Montsallier. Étienne's father, who owned a large estate in Montpellier, helped him financially, and he set up a firm in Hoxton as a wax bleacher and was able to comfortably support his large family and business interests. However, when his father died in France, a Catholic relative inherited the estate and slashed his income to a paltry amount, and ultimately he was left bankrupt, unable to cover his expenses. Remembered for his generosity and his piety, Étienne died in 1733, aged 49, "of a broken heart" according to Samuel's memoirs. He left a widow and eight children, the youngest of whom died within a few months and was buried in his father's grave. Samuel's father, Pierre, was the youngest surviving child.

Education and upbringing

Pierre and Marguerite Romilly married in 1744. They had six children who died young: Michel Pierre (April 1744 – December 1744), Marguerite (born 1745), Sarah (1746–1747), Anne (born 1747–1748), Mary (1749–1755), and Judith (born 1752), followed finally by three surviving children, Thomas Peter (17 June 1753 – 7 December 1828), Catherine (born 14 February 1755) and lastly Samuel. Pierre blamed the deaths of his children on the unhealthy atmosphere of the city of London. They moved to Soho and then moved again to the High Street in Marylebone – at the time a small village a mile from the city.

His mother was in poor health, and Samuel and his siblings were largely raised by a maternal relative, Margaret Facquier, who educated the children mainly with the Bible, the 18th-century moralist periodical The Spectator, and an English translation of François Fénelon's Les Aventures de Télémaque. For a while he attended a school run by a Mr. Flack, which he hated, and his formal education ended at age 14.

Every Sunday, his family attended the French Protestant Chapel in Soho, where his future brother-in-law, John (Jean) Roget from Geneva, was pastor. (Roget and Samuel's sister Catherine were the parents of Peter Mark Roget). Roget introduced Romilly to the works of Jean Jacques Rousseau, and he became a follower. Self-taught from then on, Romilly became a good classical scholar and was conversant with French literature.

Romilly's first cousin once removed Sir Samuel Fludyer, 1st Baronet, M.P., was his godfather and namesake, and he had prospects for entering Fludyer's successful wool business. He had a clerkship learning bookkeeping, but Sir Samuel died in 1768, followed by his brother and partner, Sir Thomas Fludyer, in 1769, and the opportunity fell away.

However, good fortune entered his life in a generous benefactor, his great-uncle Philip Delahaize (or de la Haize; brother of his grandmother Marguerite Alavoine Garnault).

In 1778, Romilly decided on a career as barrister, and entered Gray's Inn. He was a pupil of Jeffries Spranger, an equity draughtsman. Staying for a period with David Chauvet, one of the progressive group of local politicians, Romilly met the like-minded Etienne Clavière, among others.

A friend from the Paris leg of this visit was Marguerite Madeleine Delessert, later Madame Gautier. Her mother was Madeleine Catherine Boy de La Tour, who married Etienne Delessert. Marguerite became the wife of the Genevan banker Jean-Antoine Gautier, who moved to Paris. Romilly stayed at the Delessert home in Passy.

Second continental tour

In 1783, immediately after being called to the bar, Romilly made a second tour. This time he was accompanied in France by John Baynes, and met Benjamin Franklin at Passy, to whom Baynes had an introduction from John Jebb. In Lausanne he met the Abbé Raynal.

In the meantime, the failed Geneva Revolution of 1782 had occurred. Romilly was introduced in 1784 to Honoré Mirabeau, by the Genevan writer François d'Ivernois, as his Memoirs state; Halevy says it was through Thomas Brand Hollis. D'Ivernois and Dumont formed part of the group of the revolution's leaders who by then were exiles in London. Mirabeau saw him daily for a long time..

In what has been called the Bowood circle, Jeremy Bentham, with whom Romilly was acquainted, became a friend, and he had much to do with Benjamin Vaughan, another friend. Romilly and Bentham enjoyed a loose and complex intellectual alliance for several decades from this point.

French Revolution and its era

In 1789, Romilly visited Paris, and studied the course of the French Revolution there, also visiting the dungeon at Vincennes where Mirabeau had been confined.

Political career

In 1806, on the accession of the Ministry of All the Talents to office, Romilly was offered the post of Solicitor General, although he had never sat in the House of Commons. He accepted, was knighted, and was brought into parliament for Queenborough. He went out of office with the government, but remained in the House of Commons, sitting successively for Horsham, Wareham and Arundel. As he concluded his remarks, Romilly was greeted with a standing ovation by other Members of Parliament, a reaction that very rarely occurred in the House of Commons. Wilberforce himself sat with his head in his hands, tears streaming down his face.

thumb|left|Sir Samuel Romilly, engraving by John Kennerly after C. Bestland, 1822

Romilly worked to reform the criminal law, under the influence of what is now called Classical criminology. He spent a dozen years of his life on the passage through Parliament of legislative reforms. He argued against the attitudes to punishments of Martin Madan and William Paley. The so-called Bloody Code of justice was, in his view, something that required reform, while, as he stated in his Memoirs, one effect of the French Revolution was to lessen the chances of Parliament passing the necessary legislation. The tide of opinion, however, was beginning to turn.

In 1808, Romilly managed to repeal the Elizabethan statute which made it a capital offence to steal from the person. Successful prosecutions of pickpockets then rose. Charles Williams-Wynn, on the other hand, saw Romilly's background in equity law, and discrete bills, as inadequate.

In 1813, John William Ward found the approach too "philosophical".

Works

  • A Fragment on the Constitutional Power and Duty of Juries upon Trials for Libels (1784) on juries and the Case of the Dean of St Asaph, anonymous publication by the Society for Constitutional Information.

thumb|Parish church of St Michael and All Angels, Knill, Herefordshire, where Ann and Samuel Romilly were buried

Romilly was buried on 11 November 1818 at the parish church of St Michael and All Angels, Knill, Herefordshire, with his wife Ann.

Romilly bought an estate from Francis Mathew, 2nd Earl Landaff which was to be divided between his children. After his wife's death Henry, 3rd Marquess of Lansdowne and John Whishaw were guardians to his minor children. A private act of Parliament, (4 Geo. 4. c. 22 ) permitted Lansdowne and Whishaw to purchase the shares in the Landaff estate of Sophia and the minor sons.

References

Sources

  • Vol. I; Vol. II

Further reading

  • Vol I; Vol II
  • Chambers' Book of Days

;Attribution