Tenterden
CHARLES ABBOT, BARON, an English jurist; born a barber's son in Canterbury, Oct. 7, 1762. A foundationer at King's School, Canterbury, of which he was captain at 17, he gained an exhibition which enabled him to proceed to Corpus Christi College, Oxford. Here he obtained a scholarship; in 1784 the chancellor's medal for Latin verse, in 1786 for an English essay; graduated in 1785, and soon after became fellow and tutor of his college. Entered at the Middle Temple, he was called to the bar by the Inner Temple in 1796. He joined the Oxford circuit and obtained a large practice. In 1801 he became recorder of Oxford, and next year published his clear and learned treatise on the "Law Relative to Merchant Ships and Seamen." In 1816 he accepted a puisne judgeship in the Court of Common Pleas; and in 1818 he was knighted, and chosen to succeed Lord Ellenborough as Chief- Justice of the King's Bench. He was raised to the peerage in 1827. In the House of Lords he strongly opposed the