John Scott, 1st earl of Eldon

John Scott, 1st earl of Eldon (born June 4, 1751, Newcastle upon Tyne, Northumberland, Eng.—died Jan. 13, 1838, Hamilton Place, Middlesex) was the lord chancellor of England for much of the period between 1801 and 1827. As chief equity judge, he granted the injunction as a remedy more often than earlier lords chancellor had generally done and settled the rules for its use. An inflexible conservative, he opposed Roman Catholic political emancipation, the abolition of imprisonment as a punishment for debtors, the abolition of the slave trade, and the reform of the House of Commons.

Scott studied at University College, Oxford (B.A., 1770; M.A. 1773), and at the Middle Temple, London. Called to the bar in 1776, he entered the House of Commons in 1783. As attorney general from 1793, during the French revolutionary period, he was largely responsible for the measures that the ministry of William Pitt the Younger took to suppress political meetings and literature considered seditious. In 1799 he became chief justice of the Court of Common Pleas and was created Baron Eldon. Appointed lord chancellor by Prime Minister Henry Addington (afterward 1st Viscount Sidmouth), he served under five premiers from April 14, 1801, to April 12, 1827, except for 14 months in 1806–07. He resigned in protest against the Catholic Emancipation plan of George Canning, prime minister in 1827.

Always dilatory, the English chancery was thought to be at its worst in that respect during Eldon’s tenure. He helped, however, to develop trademark law by issuing numerous injunctions against merchants who sold goods bearing the name of other traders. In 1821 King George IV created him Viscount Encombe and Earl of Eldon.