William Murray, 1st Earl of Mansfield, SL, PC (2 March 1705 – 20 March 1793) is a British barrister, politician and judge noted for his reform of English law.
Born to Scottish nobility, he is educated in Perth, Scotland before moving to London at the age of 13 to take up a place at Westminster School.
He is accepted into Christ Church, Oxford, in May 1723, and graduates four years later.
Returning to London from Oxford, he is called to the Bar by Lincoln's Inn on 23 November 1730, and quickly gains a reputation as an excellent barrister
He becomes involved in politics in 1742, beginning with his election as a Member of Parliament for Boroughbridge, and appointment as Solicitor General.
In the absence of a strong Attorney General, he becomes the main spokesman for the government in the House of Commons, and is noted for his "great powers of eloquence" and described as "beyond comparison the best speaker" in the House of Commons.
(Heward, Edmund (1979).
Lord Mansfield: A Biography of William Murray 1st Earl of Mansfield 1705–1793 Lord Chief Justice for 32 years.
Chichester: Barry Rose (publishers) Ltd).
With the promotion of Sir Dudley Ryder to Lord Chief Justice in 1754, he becomes Attorney General, and when Ryder unexpectedly dies several months later, he takes his place as Chief Justice.
As Lord Chief Justice, Mansfield modernizes both English law and the English courts system; he speeds up the system for submitting motions and reforms the way judgments are given to reduce time and expense for the parties.
For his work in Carter v Boehm and Pillans v Van Mierop, he has been called the founder of English commercial law.
He is perhaps best known for his judgment in Somersett's Case, where he holds that slavery is unlawful in England (although this does not end slave trafficking altogether).
