George Jessel (jurist)

Sir George Jessel PC FRS (13 February 1824 – 21 March 1883), a British judge, was born in London. He was one of the most influential commercial law and equity judges of his time, and served as the Master of the Rolls.

Jessel was the son of Zadok Aaron Jessel, a Jewish coral merchant. He was educated at a school for Jews at Kew, and being prevented by then existing religious disabilities from proceeding to the University of Oxford or Cambridge, went to University College London. He entered as a student at Lincoln's Inn in 1842, and a year later took his BA degree at the University of London, becoming MA and gold medallist in mathematics and natural philosophy in 1844. In 1846 he became a fellow of University College, London and in 1847 he was called to the Bar at Lincoln's Inn.

Jessel's earnings during his first three years at the bar were 52, 346, and 795 guineas, from which it will be seen that his rise to a tolerably large practice was rapid. His work, however, was mainly conveyancing, and for long his income remained almost stationary. By degrees, however, he got more work, and was called within the bar in 1865, becoming a bencher of his Inn in the same year and practising in the Court of Chancery. Jessel entered Parliament as Liberal Party member for Dover in 1868, and although neither his intellect nor his oratory was of a class likely to commend itself to his fellow-members, he attracted William Ewart Gladstone's attention by two learned speeches on the Bankruptcy Bill which was before the house in 1869, with the result that in 1871 he was appointed Solicitor General.

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