Thomas, Lord, one of the most distinguished of the chief-justices of England, was born at London 23d July 1779. He received the rudiments of his education at Palgrave School, near Diss, in Norfolk, at that time conducted by Mrs Barbauld. After attending various preparatory schools he was entered at St John's College, Cambridge, where he graduated honourably in 1800. Soon after taking his degree he married; and in 1806 was called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn, when he engaged in the active pursuit of the law. At the general election of 1818, he was returned M.P. for Wareham, and at once took his seat with the Whig opposition. In the following year he was returned for Nottingham, for which place he continued to sit till his elevation to the bench in 1832. His liberal principles had obtained his exclusion from office till 1822 he was appointed common serjeant by the corporation of London. In 1830 he was made attorney-general under Lord Grey's administration. Two years later, after his elevation to the bench, he was raised to the peerage. In 1850 he resigned the chief-justiceship of the queen's bench and retired into private life, followed by the best wishes of the numerous friends whom he had attached by the integrity of his personal character, his noble efforts for the abolition of the slave-trade, and his unceasing exertions in the cause of law and political reform. Lord Denman died September 26, 1854.