John Lee (Attorney-General)

John Lee, Esq.
Mezzotint Portrait by Samuel William Reynolds, 1838 (reprod. of Painting by Sir Joshua Reynolds, 1786)
Born	6 March 1733
Died	5 August 1793 (1793-08-06) (aged 60)

John Lee, KC (6 March 1733 – 5 August 1793), was an English lawyer, politician, and law officer of the Crown. He assisted in the early days of Unitarianism in England.

Born in Leeds, Yorkshire, on 6 March 1733, he was the youngest of ten children of cloth merchant Thomas Lee and his wife, Mary (née Reveley). After his father died in 1736 he was principally brought up by his mother, a Dissenter and friend of Thomas Secker, later Archbishop of Canterbury. He was called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn and joined the Northern Circuit, where eventually he gained an equal share with James Wallace of the leadership. He was a king's attorney and serjeant for the County Palatine of Lancaster from 1782 until his death.

In April 1769 he appeared before the House of Commons as counsel for the petitioners against the return of Colonel Henry Luttrell for Middlesex; the petition failed. The government offered him a seat in the house and the K.C. in 1769, and in 1770 K.C. with the appointment of solicitor-general to the queen, but he refused both offers on political grounds. On 18 September 1769 he became, however, recorder of Doncaster. In 1779 he was one of the counsel for Admiral Augustus Keppel, 1st Viscount Keppel when he was tried by court-martial for his conduct in the Battle of Ushant. In 1780 Lee became a king's counsel, and in the second administration of Lord Rockingham was appointed Solicitor General for England and Wales, and sat in parliament for Clitheroe. Subsequently, he was elected for Higham Ferrers and sat for that constituency till he died.