Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 34.djvu/298

 the general election in December 1832 was returned at the head of the poll for the new constituency of the Tower Hamlets, for which he continued to sit until his retirement from the House of Commons at the dissolution in June 1841. On 25 April 1833 he supported Grote's resolution for the adoption of the ballot, which he considered ‘was indisputably necessary to secure a beneficial exercise of the elective franchise’ (ib. xvii. 645–8), and on 23 July 1833 declared himself in favour of triennial parliaments (ib. xix. 1141–2). In supporting Lord Morpeth's amendment to the address on 25 Feb. 1835, Lushington defended himself from Colonel Sibthorpe's attack upon a speech which he had recently made to his constituents in Tower Hamlets (ib. xxvi. 263–71).

His motion for leave to bring in a bill for the abolition of capital punishment was defeated on 5 March 1840 by 161 to 91 votes (ib. lii. 929–35, 946). He supported Easthope's motion in May 1841 for the introduction of a bill for the abolition of church rates (ib. lviii. 794–7), and on 2 June following spoke for the last time in the House of Commons during the debate on the motion of want of confidence, when he availed himself of the opportunity ‘of avowing himself to be still a party man, and strongly attached to those principles which he had hitherto professed’ (ib. lviii. 1008–14). Lushington's share in the separation of Lord and Lady Byron in 1817 is noticed under (cf., Life of Byron, vi. 279). With Brougham and Denman Lushington was retained as counsel for Queen Caroline before the House of Lords, and made a masterly speech in her defence on 26 Oct. 1820 (, Trial of Queen Caroline, 1820, iii. 293–342). He was present at the queen's death on 7 Aug. 1821, and as one of her executors made the arrangements for the removal of her body from Brandenburgh House, Hammersmith, to Brunswick, where he attended the funeral (see Parl. Debates, 2nd ser. vi. 949–62). In June 1822 Lushington appeared before Sir John Nicholl in the prerogative court as counsel for Mrs. Serres, the soi-disant Princess Olive of Cumberland, in support of her claim to a legacy under the will of George III (, Eccl. Reports, i. 255–73). On 16 Feb. 1828 he was appointed judge of the consistory court of London in the place of Sir Christopher Robinson, and took his seat the fourth session of Hilary term (, Eccl. Reports, i. xx). He succeeded Nicholl as judge of the high court of admiralty on 17 Oct. 1838, and was sworn a member of the privy council on 5 Nov. following. The courts over which he presided went through several changes in his time. In 1840 and 1861 the powers of the admiralty court were extended by 3 & 4 Vict. c. 65, and 24 Vict. c. 10; and by the former act the jurisdiction of the prize court, which was formerly constituted by a special commission issued under the great seal in the time of war, was vested in the admiralty judge. By another act passed in 1840 (3 & 4 Vict. c. 66), a salary of 4,000l. a year was assigned to this judge, who was to be disqualified from sitting in the House of Commons after the dissolution of the then existing parliament. In 1858 the voluntary and contentious jurisdiction of granting probate of wills or letters of administration was transferred from the ecclesiastical courts to the new court of probate by 20 & 21 Vict. c. 77, while the jurisdiction of the same courts in matters matrimonial was transferred to the new court for divorce and matrimonial causes by 20 & 21 Vict. c. 85, and it was provided that upon the next vacancy the judge of the probate court should also be the judge of the admiralty court. Finally, by an act passed in 1859, serjeants, barristers, attorneys, and solicitors were allowed to practise in the admiralty court (22 & 23 Vict. c. 6). On 2 July 1858 Lushington was appointed dean of arches in the place of Sir John Dodson, and was succeeded in the London consistory court by Mr. (afterwards Sir) Travers Twiss. Owing to the infirmities of age he resigned both his seat in the admiralty court and his post as dean of arches in July 1867. He died at Ockham Park, Surrey, on 19 Jan. 1873, in his ninety-second year, and was buried at Ockham.

Lushington was an ardent reformer and a staunch churchman, an able advocate, and a forcible parliamentary speaker. Throughout the anti-slavery struggle he warmly supported Buxton in his conduct of the campaign, and ‘every idea and every plan was originated and arranged between them’ (, Memoirs of Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton, 1850, p. 133). As the judge of the admiralty court for nearly twenty-nine years he acquired a high reputation for the legal soundness and the substantial accuracy of his decisions, which were seldom appealed against, and but rarely reversed. As an ecclesiastical judge he had several cases before him of great interest. He gave judgment as judge of the consistory court of London in the case of Westerton v. Liddell (church ornaments) on 5 Dec. 1855, as assessor to the Archbishop of Canterbury in the case of Ditcher v. Denison (the doctrine of the real presence) on 12 Aug. 1856, and as dean of arches in the case of Burder v. Heath