John Leach (judge)

The Right Honourable Sir John Leach KC PC
Sir John Leach, engraving by Henry Dawe
Master of the Rolls
Personal details
Born	(1760-08-28)28 August 1760 Bedford
Died	14 September 1834(1834-09-14) (aged 74) Edinburgh

Sir John Leach, KC (28 August 1760 – 14 September 1834) was an English judge, and Master of the Rolls.

The son of Richard Leach, a coppersmith of Bedford, he was born in that town on 28 August 1760. After leaving Bedford School he became a pupil of Sir Robert Taylor the architect. In his office he is said to have made the working drawings for the erection of Stone Buildings, which are still preserved at Lincoln's Inn, and to have designed Howletts, in the parish of Bekesbourne, Kent. On the recommendation of his old fellow-pupil, Samuel Pepys Cockerell, and other friends, Leach abandoned architecture for the law, and was admitted a student of the Middle Temple on 26 January 1785.

Having studied of conveyancing and equity drafting in the chambers of William Alexander, he was called to the bar in Hilary term 1790, and joined the home circuit and Surrey sessions. In 1792 he was engaged as counsel in the Seaford election petition, and in 1795 was elected recorder of that Cinque port. Having previously purchased the Pelham interest, he unsuccessfully contested the constituency against Charles Rose Ellis and Ellis's cousin, George Ellis, at the general election in May 1796. In 1800 Leach gave up all common law work, and confined himself to the equity courts, where his pleadings and terse style of speaking secured him an extensive business.

At a by-election in July 1806, he was returned for Seaford, but owing to the prorogation did not take his seat in that parliament. He was again returned at the general election in the following October, and continued to represent Seaford until his retirement from parliamentary life in 1816. In Hilary term 1807 Leach was made a king's counsel, and was subsequently elected a bencher of the Middle Temple. Leach spoke rarely in the House of Commons. In March 1809 he defended the conduct of the Duke of York and Albany, and on 31 December 1810 supported William Lamb's amendment to the first regency resolution (ib. xviii. 532–45). In 1811 he carried through the House of Commons the Foreign Ministers' Pension Bill. On 15 February 1813 he strongly protested against the bill for the creation of a vice-chancellor, the effect of which he maintained would be to make the lord chancellor a political rather than a judicial character; and on 31 May 1815 he strenuously opposed Lord Althorp's motion for an inquiry into the expenditure of £100,000 granted by parliament for the outfit of the Prince Regent.