Thomas Pengelly (judge)

Sir Thomas Pengelly (1675 – 14 April 1730) was a British lawyer, judge, novelist and later the Members of Parliament for Hereford, serving from 1722 to 1727, and Lord Justice of Appeal in 1726.

Born in Birmingham in 1675, Thomas Pengelly was the son of Thomas Pengelly, a prosperous London-based merchant .

By 1683 the family's home in Hereford had provided lodgings for the former Protector Richard Cromwell after the Restoration of the Monarchy. On the death of Sir Quentin in 1696, Cromwell continued to lodge with Mrs Pengelly, moving with her to her property in Cheshunt in Hertfordshire in 1700, and remaining there until his own death in 1712. This arrangement created a rumour that the younger Thomas Pengelly was his son

Pengelly, was apprenticed as a clerk in an Attorney at Law’s office in London in 1691 aged 16, and was admitted to the Inner Temple in 1692. He was Called to the Bar on 24 November 1700, and in 1710 he was created a Serjeant-at-law. By 1720 he was regarded as one of the leading Advocates practising in Westminster Hall where he was widely known as an authority in Corporate law. By 1717 Pengelly had become the foremost legal adviser to the Duke of Somerset, and during the 1720s he was also legal adviser to the Duchess of Marlborough when she became involved in court cases concerning the Blenheim estate, which she had inherited from her father, the first Duke of Marlborough. On 1 May 1719 Pengelly was knighted and appointed Prime Serjeant to King George I. As Prime Serjeant he was involved in the trial of the Jacobite plotter Christopher Layer for high treason in early 1722.

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