Samuel Romilly

Sir Samuel Romilly (1 March 1757 – 2 November 1818), was a British legal reformer.

Romilly was born in Frith Street, Soho, London, the second son of Peter Romilly, a watchmaker and jeweller. His grandfather had emigrated from Montpellier after the revocation of the edict of Nantes, and had married Margaret Garnault, a Huguenot refugee like himself, but of a far wealthier family. Samuel served for a time in his father's shop; he was well-educated, becoming a good classical scholar and particularly conversant with French literature. A legacy of £2000 from one of his mother's relations led to his being articled to a solicitor and clerk in chancery with the idea of qualifying himself to purchase the office of one of the six clerks in chancery.

In 1778, however, Romilly determined to go to the bar, and entered himself at Gray's Inn. He went to Geneva in 1781, where he made the acquaintance of the chief democratic leaders, including Étienne Dumont. Called to the bar in 1783, he went the midland circuit, but was chiefly occupied with chancery practice. On the publication of Martin Madan's Thoughts on Executive Justice, advocating the increase of capital punishments, he at once wrote and published in 1786 Observations on Madan's book.

Of more general interest is his intimacy with the great Honoré Mirabeau, to whom he was introduced in 1784. Mirabeau saw him daily for a long time and introduced him to the Marquess of Lansdowne, who highly appreciated him, and, when Mirabeau became a political leader, it was to Romilly that he applied for an account of the procedure used in the House of Commons of Great Britain.

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