LLOYD, Lord, an eminent English lawyer, Chief-Justice of the King's Bench from 1788 to 1809, was born in 1732, at Greddington, in Flintshire. Such early training as he had he received at the grammar-school of Ruthin; but he had only some small progress in the Latin grammar when he was withdrawn, and at the age of fourteen articled to an attorney in extensive practice at Nantwich, in Cheshire. During his seven years' apprenticeship he showed such aptitude for legal studies, that he became a great favourite with his master, and was even led to hope that in course of time he would be admitted to a partnership in the business. Disappointed in this hope, he resolved to prepare himself for the English bar. Proceeding to London in 1754, he entered Lincoln's-Inn; and, seven years later, was called to the bar. Without friends, and too proud to stoop to the small arts by which success is reached, he remained for many years poor and unknown. Still hopeful, he attended regularly the courts of equity and common law (especially the former), and was equally punctual at sessions and circuit. At last, by slow degrees, he began to make way as an equity draftsman and conveyancer; and, having attracted the notice of Mr Thurlow, then attorney-general, he had soon more to do than he could undertake. In 1779 he was associated with Mr Erskine as leading counsel for Lord George Gordon, then on his trial for high treason. Three years later he was made attorney-general under the Rockingham administration, and retained office when Pitt became Chancellor of the Exchequer. In 1784 he became Master of the Rolls, and was made a baronet; and, four years later, he succeeded Lord Mansfield as Chief-Judge of the King's Bench, with the title of Lord Kenyon, Baron Greddington. His elevation to this high office gave great offence to the lawyers, with whom Kenyon was very far from being popular. His personnel was very little calculated to recommend him to the profession. Deeply learned in the law, he was quite ignorant of everything beyond its pale. He was a very poor orator; and his manners, always ungracious, were often irritating, and even insolent in the extreme. Hating show and pomp of every kind, he dressed shabbily, drove a miserable equipage, and almost never entertained. On the bench he ruled like a despot, and would never allow even his brother judges to express opinions differing from his own. To the counsel who appeared before him he was still more stern and arbitrary, and often put down any freedom of thought or speech on their part in cruelly harsh and undignified language. With the public, on the other hand, Lord Kenyon was in the highest degree popular, chiefly on account of the inflexible impartiality with which he administered justice. The vices and crimes of the higher classes he punished more severely in proportion to the rank and wealth of the offenders. He often threatened, that if the highest lady in the land were brought before him and convicted of gambling, she should stand on the pillory for it. Libels, and especially political libels, he also punished with rigorous severity. In the case of poor offenders, or such as he believed to have been betrayed into crime by designing persons, he was always merciful; and, though his great maxim was, that the law was no respecter of persons, he sometimes strained it in their favour.

From his complete destitution of literary accomplishment, Lord Kenyon's decisions, though now regarded as of the highest authority, were often so ill-reasoned and obscurely worded, as to be far from satisfactory; and thus the value of the adjudication was damaged by the apparent unsoundness of the grounds on which it was based. This defect was also due in some measure to the haste with which he pushed through his work. He often despatched between twenty and thirty cases in the course of a single day.

Lord Kenyon died in 1802, in the fifteenth year of his public life as Chief-Justice of the King's Bench. His death is said to have been hastened by the loss of his eldest son, who was to have inherited his title and the immense fortune which he had amassed.