John Pratt (judge)

Sir John Pratt PC (1657–1725) was an English judge and politician. He was Lord Chief Justice of England from 15 May 1718 until 2 March 1725. He was appointed as an interim Chancellor of the Exchequer on 2 February 1721 until 3 April 1721.

He was the son of Richard Pratt of Standlake, Oxfordshire. After matriculating at Magdalen Hall, Oxford, on 14 March 1672–3, he migrated to Wadham College where he was elected scholar in 1674, and Fellow in 1678. He graduated B.A. in 1676, and proceeded M.A. in 1679.

Pratt was admitted on 18 November 1675 a student at the Inner Temple, where he was called to the bar on 12 February 1682. He appeared for the Crown before the House of Lords in Sir John Fenwick's case, 16–17 December 1696, and before the House of Commons for the new East India Company in support of the petition for a charter on 14 June and 1 July 1698. He was made serjeant-at-law on 6 November 1700, and was heard by a committee of the House of Commons as counsel for the court of exchequer against a bill for curtailing the fees of the officers of that court on 25 February 1706.

On 17 January 1710 Pratt was assigned, with Sir Simon Harcourt, as counsel for Henry Sacheverell, but declined to act. On 20 December 1711 he appeared before the House of Lords in support of the patent conferring an English dukedom on James Douglas, 4th Duke of Hamilton. On 28 December 1711 he was returned to parliament for Midhurst, for which he sat a silent (or all but) member until the dissolution which followed the accession of George I. Meanwhile, on Lord Cowper's recommendation, he was raised to a puisne judgeship in the court of king's bench, and was sworn in accordingly on 22 November 1714 and knighted.

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