Andrew Amos (lawyer)

Andrew Amos (1791 – 18 April 1860) was a British lawyer and professor of law.

Amos was born in 1791 in India, where his father, James Amos, a Russian merchant, of Devonshire Square, London, who had travelled there, had married Cornelia Bonté, daughter of a Swiss general officer in the Dutch service. The family was Scottish, and took its name in the time of the Covenanters. Andrew Amos was educated at Eton and at Trinity College, Cambridge, of which he became a fellow, after graduating as fifth wrangler in 1813.

Amos was called to the bar by the Middle Temple and joined the Midland circuit, where he soon acquired a reputation for rare legal learning, and his personal character secured him a large arbitration practice. On 1 August 1826, he married Margaret, daughter of the Rev. William Lax, Lowndean Professor of Astronomy at the University of Cambridge.

Within the next eight years Amos became of Trinity College, Cambridge; recorder of Oxford, Nottingham, and Banbury; fellow of the new University of London; and criminal law commissioner.

The first criminal law commission on which Amos sat consisted of Mr. (afterward Professor) Thomas Starkie, Mr. Henry Bellenden Ker, Mr. (afterward Mr. Justice) William Wightman, Mr. John Austin, and himself. The commission was renewed at intervals between 1834 and 1843, Amos being always a member of it. Seven reports were issued, the seventh report, of 1843, containing a complete criminal code, systematically arranged into chapters, sections, and articles. The historical and constitutional aspects of the subject received minute attention at every point, and the perplexed topic of criminal punishments was considered in all its relations. Amos's correspondence with the Chief Justice of Australia in reference to the penal transportation system partially appears in the report, and he was consulted by the Chief Justice as to the extension of trial by jury under the peculiar circumstances of the settlement.

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