James Parker Deane

Sir James Parker Deane (1812–1902) was an English judge. With Thomas Hutchinson Tristram he was the last of the civilians—the civil lawyers with a training from Doctors' Commons, as described in David Copperfield by Charles Dickens.

Born at Hurst Grove, Berkshire, on 25 June 1812, he was second son of Henry Boyle Deane by his wife Elizabeth, daughter of James Wyborn of Hull House, Shelden, Kent. He went to Winchester School as a colleger in 1824, and matriculated at St John's College, Oxford, on 29 June 1829. In 1833 he obtained a second class in the final classical school and a third in the final mathematical school.

Deane graduated B.C.L. on 28 May 1834, and proceeded D.C.L. on 10 April 1839; he admitted on 2 November that year as a member of the College of Advocates. He had previously, on 8 November 1837, entered as a student the Inner Temple, and on 29 January 1841 he was called to the bar there. He was made a Q.C. on 16 Jan. 1858, and became bencher of his inn in the same year, serving the office of treasurer in 1878.

In 1854 Deane was appointed legal adviser to Admiral Sir Charles Napier commanding the British fleet in the Baltic Sea: he was present on board HMS Duke of Wellington at the bombardment of Bomarsund, and was one of the landing party. On the abolition of Doctors' Commons in 1858 Deane transferred himself to the courts of probate and divorce, where he obtained a large practice, adapting himself to juries and to the examination of witnesses. In the ecclesiastical courts of the period there were few leading cases in which Deane was not retained; noted appearances were Boyd v. Phillpotts, in which the legality of the Exeter reredos was challenged, and of Martin v. the Rev. A. H. Mackonochie, which continued in some form from 1867 to 1882, and in the earlier stages of which he appeared on behalf of the defendant.

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