James Plaisted Wilde, Baron Penzance
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The Right Honourable The Lord Penzance QC |
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Lord Penzance.
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| Personal details | |
| Born | 12 July 1816 |
| Died | 9 December 1899 (aged 83) |
| Nationality | British |
| Spouse(s) | Lady Mary Pleydell-Bouverie (1825-1900) |
| Alma mater | Trinity College, Cambridge |
James Plaisted Wilde, 1st Baron Penzance (12 July 1816 – 9 December 1899) was a noted British judge and rose breeder who was also a proponent of the Baconian theory that the works usually attributed to William Shakespeare were in fact written by Francis Bacon.
Born in London, he was the son of Edward Archer Wilde, a solicitor, and Marianne (née Norris). His younger brother Sir Alfred Thomas Wilde was a Lieutenant-General in the Madras Army while Lord Chancellor Thomas Wilde, 1st Baron Truro, was his uncle. He was educated at Winchester, was called to the Bar, Inner Temple, in 1839, and graduated M.A. from Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1842.
He became a successful lawyer himself and was appointed a Queen's Counsel in 1855. He was knighted in 1860, shortly after his appointment as a Baron of the Exchequer. He presided over the Court of Probate and Divorce from 1863 until his retirement in 1872, being raised to the peerage as Baron Penzance, of Penzance in the County of Cornwall, in 1869. He was the judge in the sensational Mordaunt divorce case.
In 1875, he accepted the post as Dean of Arches and presided over a number of notorious trials, notably, Bell Cox, Dale, Enraght, Green and Tooth, under the Public Worship Regulation Act 1874 arising out of the Ritualist controversy in the Church of England.
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