Edward Bearcroft

Edward Bearcroft, KC (30 April 1737 – 20 November 1796) was an English barrister, judge, and politician.

Born on 30 April 1737, he was the second son of the Reverend Philip Bearcroft DD, then Preacher later Master of the Charterhouse, and his first wife, born Elizabeth Lovegrove. Educated at Charterhouse until 1752, he then went to Peterhouse, Cambridge and in 1754 began legal studies at the Inner Temple, being called to the bar on 24 November 1758.

He built a respectable and lucrative practice as a barrister, being appointed counsel and steward of accounts to the governors of Charterhouse in 1765 and King's Counsel on 24 July 1772. In the Inner Temple he was a bencher in 1772, reader in 1780 and treasurer in 1781. He appeared in major trials, in 1778 being a defending counsel in the case of R v Baillie, where Captain Baillie was accused of criminal libel and in 1784 he was counsel for the prosecution in the case at Shrewsbury against William Davies Shipley, Dean of St Asaph, for seditious libel, now known as The Case of the Dean of St Asaph.

In 1788 he was appointed Chief Justice of Chester, holding the post despite increasing deafness until his death. In October 1794 he was among the counsel for the Crown in the 1794 Treason Trials.

He unsuccessfully contested Worcester in the general election of 1774, but was returned as Member of Parliament for Hindon in 1784. His parliamentary patron, William Thomas Beckford, then offered him the seat of Saltash, where he was returned in 1790, holding it until his death.

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