Edwin Wilkins Field

Edwin Wilkins Field (12 October 1804 – 30 July 1871) was an English lawyer and painter who committed much of his life to law reform.

Edwin was the eldest son of William Field and was born at Leam, near Warwick. He was educated at his father's school, and on 19 March 1821 was articled to the firm of Taylor & Roscoe, solicitors, of King's Bench Walk, Temple. For some years after arriving in London he lived in the family of the junior partner, Robert Roscoe, to the influence of whose artistic tastes he attributed much of the pleasures of his later life. Edgar Taylor (died 1839), the senior partner, was also known as a scholar. At Michaelmas term, 1826, Field was admitted attorney and solicitor. He had thoughts of beginning business in Warwick, but remained in London on the advice of James Booth, joining his fellow-clerk, William Sharpe (1804–1870), brother to Daniel and Samuel and nephew to the poet Samuel Rogers, to form the firm of Sharpe & Field, in Bread Street, Cheapside. Henry Ellwood was their first clerk. In 1835 Taylor, who was then alone, took Sharpe and Field into partnership with him. The office of the firm was long in Bedford Row, London, afterwards in Lincoln's Inn Fields.

In 1840 Field came forward as an advocate of chancery reform. His Observations of a Solicitor attracted much attention. In 1841 two of his suggestions were carried out, by the abolition of the Exchequer of pleas as a court of equity, and the appointment of two additional Vice-Chancellors. The energy with which he continued to press his views had much to do with the passing of the Court of Chancery Act 1842, by which the Six Clerks and Sworn Clerks were abolished, and the path was opened for further improvements in the efficiency and economy of chancery proceedings. In 1844 Field was in communication with the Board of Trade on the subject of a winding-up act for . The Joint Stock Companies Act 1848 substantially embodied the proposals contained in a draft bill laid before the legal adviser of the Board of Trade on 27 April 1846, by Field and his friend Rigge, who had formerly been in his office.

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