Sir Anthony Hart ( 1754 – 1831) was a British lawyer, who served as Lord Chancellor of Ireland from 1827 to 1830.

Life

He was born into a slave-owning family about 1754 in the island of

Saint Kitts Saint Kitts, officially Saint Christopher, is an island in the West Indies. The west side of the island borders the Caribbean Sea, and the eastern coast faces the Atlantic Ocean. Saint Kitts and the neighbouring island of Nevis constitute one ...

, West Indies, fourth son of William Hart and Sarah Johnson. He said to have been educated at

Tonbridge School Tonbridge School is a public school (English fee-charging boarding and day school for boys aged 13–18) in Tonbridge, Kent, England, founded in 1553 by Sir Andrew Judde (sometimes spelt Judd). It is a member of the Eton Group and has clo ...

and to have been a unitarian preacher at

Norwich Norwich () is a cathedral city and district of the county of Norfolk, England, of which it is the county town. It lies by the River Wensum, about north-east of London, north of Ipswich and east of Peterborough. The population of the Norwich ...

for a short time. He was admitted as a student of the

Middle Temple The Honourable Society of the Middle Temple, commonly known simply as Middle Temple, is one of the four Inns of Court entitled to Call to the bar, call their members to the English Bar as barristers, the others being the Inner Temple (with whi ...

in 1776 and was

called to the bar The call to the bar is a legal term of art in most common law jurisdictions where persons must be qualified to be allowed to argue in court on behalf of another party and are then said to have been "called to the bar" or to have received "call to ...

in 1781. He confined himself exclusively to equity work, and after practising twenty-six years at the outer bar was in 1807 appointed a

king's counsel A King's Counsel (Post-nominal letters, post-nominal initials KC) is a senior lawyer appointed by the monarch (or their Viceroy, viceregal representative) of some Commonwealth realms as a "Counsel learned in the law". When the reigning monarc ...

, and in the same year was elected a Bencher of his Inn. In 1816, he was made Solicitor-General to Queen Charlotte. Having been appointed vice-chancellor of the Court of Chancery in the place of Sir John Leach, he was appointed a

privy Counsellor The Privy Council, formally His Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council, is a formal body of advisers to the sovereign of the United Kingdom. Its members, known as privy counsellors, are mainly senior politicians who are current or former ...

and

knighted A knight is a person granted an honorary title of a knighthood by a head of state (including the pope) or representative for service to the monarch, the church, or the country, especially in a military capacity. The concept of a knighthood ...

in 1827. He took his seat in the vice-chancellor's court in the following month. Following the resignation of Lord Liverpool's ministry in March 1827 Lord Manners resigned as Irish Chancellor. His natural successor would have been Lord Plunket but

George IV George IV (George Augustus Frederick; 12 August 1762 – 26 June 1830) was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and King of Hanover from 29 January 1820 until his death in 1830. At the time of his accession to the throne, h ...

disapproved of Plunket's support for Catholic emancipation. Instead, Manners remained in post whilst a successor was found. Eventually, in October 1827, to the surprise of the Irish Bar, Lord Goderich offered Hart the post of Lord Chancellor of

Ireland Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...

.James Roderick O'Flanagan, ''The Lives of the Lord Chancellors and Keepers of the Great Seal of ...'', ii, ch. lx On accepting this office, Hart expressly stipulated ‘that he was to have no

politics Politics () is the set of activities that are associated with decision-making, making decisions in social group, groups, or other forms of power (social and political), power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of Social sta ...

, general, local, or religious; and that of Papists and Orangemen he was to know nothing’. He was sworn in at Dublin on 5 November 1827, and took his seat in the

Court of Chancery The Court of Chancery was a court of equity in England and Wales that followed a set of loose rules to avoid a slow pace of change and possible harshness (or "inequity") of the Common law#History, common law. The Chancery had jurisdiction over ...

on the following day, when he immediately became involved in a serious misunderstanding with Sir William MacMahon, the Master of the Rolls in Ireland, in reference to the right of the latter to appoint a secretary. Hart did his best to shorten equity pleadings, which he considered were ‘too prolix in Ireland’. While he was lord chancellor, a singular case affecting the rights of the Irish bar arose, a full account of which will be found in O'Flanagan's ''Lives of the Lord Chancellors of Ireland''. Upon the formation of Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey's administration towards the close of 1830, Lord Plunket was appointed in Hart's place. Hart sat as lord chancellor for the last time on 22 December 1830, and was addressed in a farewell speech by the veteran lawyer William Saurin, the former

Attorney General for Ireland The Attorney-General for Ireland was an Kingdom of Ireland, Irish and then, from 1801 under the Acts of Union 1800, United Kingdom government office-holder. He was senior in rank to the Solicitor-General for Ireland: both advised the Crown on ...

, on behalf of the Irish bar. It is stated ‘as a fact without precedent that not a single decision of his was ever varied or reversed’. He died in Cumberland Street, Portman Square, London, on 6 December 1831. By his wife Martha Jefferson, he had one daughter, who was his sole heiress. An engraving taken from a portrait of Hart, sketched by Cahill, forms the frontispiece to the first volume of the ‘Irish Law Recorder.’

References

;Attribution {{DEFAULTSORT:Hart, Anthony 1750s births 1832 deaths Members of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom Lord chancellors of Ireland Members of the Privy Council of Ireland Vice Chancellors (Court of Chancery) Knights Bachelor