James Harmer

James Harmer (1777–1853) was an English solicitor, involved in the investigation of miscarriages of justice, radical politics, and local government in London, where he served as an alderman. He served as a model for Jaggers, the Charles Dickens character from Great Expectations.

James Harmer appears in a series of historical financial crime novels written by Susan Grossey: Fatal Forgery, The Man in the Canary Waistcoat, and Worm in the Blossom.

Harmer was the son of a Spitalfields weaver, and was left an orphan at age 10. He was articled to an attorney in 1792, but left his office on making an early marriage. He was afterwards transferred to Messrs. Fletcher & Wright of Bloomsbury, and practised for himself in 1799.

Harmer's practice was mainly in the criminal courts, and experience there made him an advocate of reform in criminal procedure. He came across police conspiracies to commit perjury, to secure convictions. In 1816 he was one of those who exposed the thief-taking scandal, and the corruption of the system of rewards.

The parliamentary committee for the reform of the criminal law took Harmer's evidence; and Sir James Mackintosh said it was as telling as any they had heard. He exposed the delinquency of witnesses, and especially the mode of obtaining evidence against Holloway and Haggerty, who were executed in 1807 for the murder of Steele. He took much trouble in investigating cases where he considered that prisoners had been wrongly committed. But into the 1830s, leading Old Bailey barrister, such as Charles Ewan Law and Charles Phillips, opposed the reforms Harmer was pressing, such as the right of defence counsel to make speeches.

In the aftermath of the Invasion of Isle de France in 1810, Henry Brougham acted as defence barrister for some British prisoners who had joined the French. Harmer was their choice of solicitor.

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