Career
Jessel's earnings during his first three years at the bar were 52, 346, and 795 guineas, from which it will be seen that his rise to a tolerably large practice was rapid. His work, however, was mainly conveyancing, and for long his income remained almost stationary. By degrees, however, he got more work, and was called within the bar in 1865, becoming a bencher of his Inn in the same year and practising in the Rolls Court. Jessel entered Parliament as Liberal Party member for Dover in 1868, and although neither his intellect nor his oratory was of a class likely to commend itself to his fellow-members, he attracted William Ewart Gladstone's attention by two learned speeches on the Bankruptcy Bill which was before the house in 1869, with the result that in 1871 he was appointed Solicitor General.
Jessel's reputation at this time stood high in the chancery courts; on the common law side he was unknown, and on the first occasion upon which he came into the Court of Queen's Bench to move on behalf of the Crown, there was very nearly a collision between him and the bench. His forceful and direct method of bringing his arguments home to the bench was not modified in his subsequent practice before it. His great powers were fully recognized; his business in addition to that on behalf of the Crown became very large, and his income for three years before he was raised to the bench amounted to nearly ₤25,000 per annum. In 1873, Jessel succeeded Lord Romilly as Master of the Rolls. From 1873 to 1881, Jessel sat as a judge of first instance in the rolls court, being also a member of the Court of Appeal.
In November 1874 the first Judicature Act came into effect (see Judicature Acts), and in 1881 the Judicature Act of that year made the Master of the Rolls the ordinary president of the first Court of Appeal, relieving him of his duties as a judge of first instance. In the Court of Appeal Jessel presided almost to the day of his death. For some time before 1883 he suffered from diabetes with chronic disorder of the heart and liver, but struggled against it; on March 16, 1883 he sat in court for the last time, and five days later he died at his residence in London, the immediate cause of death being cardiac syncope.
In person Jessel was a stoutish, square-built man of middle height, with dark hair, somewhat heavy features, a fresh ruddy complexion, and a large mouth.
Read more about this topic: George Jessel (jurist)
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