Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 44.djvu/291

Pemberton  Monthly Repository, 1833–4; Aris's Birmingham Gazette, 9 March 1840; Memoirs of Charles Mathews, iv. 169.] 

PEMBERTON, CHRISTOPHER ROBERT, M.D. (1765–1822), physician, was born in Cambridgeshire in 1765. His grandfather was Sir Francis Pemberton [q. v.], lord chief-justice. After education at Bury St. Edmunds, he entered at Caius College, Cambridge, whence he graduated M.B. in 1789 and M.D. in 1794. He was elected a fellow of the College of Physicians of London on 25 June 1796, was Gulstonian lecturer in 1797, was censor in 1796,1804, and 1811, and delivered the Harveian oration in 1806. He was in that year physician-extraordinary to the Prince of Wales and to the Duke of Cumberland, and afterwards became physician-extraordinary to the king. He was physician to St. George's Hospital from 25 April 1800 till 1808. In 1806 he published ‘A practical Treatise on Various Diseases of the Abdominal Viscera.’ It consists of eleven chapters, treating of the peritoneum, the liver, the gall-bladder, the pancreas, the spleen, the kidneys, the stomach, the intestines, and enteritis. His most original observations are that the disease known as waterbrash is rather a result of imperfect diet than of excess in alcohol (p. 101), that cancer of some parts of the bowel may exist for a long time without grave constitutional symptoms (p. 186), and that the over-exertion of muscles may lead to a condition indistinguishable from palsy (p. 157). This last observation is one of the first contributions in English medical writings to the knowledge of the large group of diseases now known as trade palsies. He recommends the use of a splint supporting the hand in cases of bad palsy of the muscles of the back of the forearm, so common as a result of lead-poisoning. The book shows him to have been an excellent clinical observer, who had paid much attention to morbid anatomy. He suffered from intense facial neuralgia or tic douloureux, and the division of several branches of the trigeminal nerve, by Sir Astley Paston Cooper [q. v.], failed to give him any relief. He was obliged, by his disease, to give up practice and to leave London, and died of apoplexy at Fredville, Kent, on 31 July 1822.

[Munk's Coll. of Phys. ii. 450; Dr. Robert Bree's Oratio Harveiana, London, 1826; Sir Henry Halford's Essays and Orations, 2nd edit. London, 1833, p. 36, where he is mentioned as Dr. P.; Works.] 

PEMBERTON, FRANCIS (1625–1697), judge, son of Ralph Pemberton, mayor of St. Albans in 1627 and 1638, by Frances, daughter of Francis Kempe, was born at St. Albans, in 1625. His grandfather was Roger Pemberton of Hertfordbury, heir to Sir Lewis Pemberton, who succeeded his father, Sir Goddard Pemberton, as sheriff of St. Albans in 1615, and was knighted at Bewsey Hall, Lancashire, on 21 Aug. 1617. Sir Goddard Pemberton belonged to the old Lancashire family of that name, was doubly returned to parliament (for Peterborough and Lewes) in 1601, was knighted at Whitehall on 23 July 1603, and settled at Hertfordbury.

Pemberton was educated at the St. Albans grammar school and the university of Cambridge, where he matriculated (from Emmanuel College) on 12 Aug. 1640, and graduated B.A. in 1644. In November the same year he was admitted a student at the Inner Temple, was called to the bar on 7 Nov. 1654, elected a bencher on 5 Feb. 1670–1, and Lent reader on 21 Jan. 1673–4. Pemberton's pupilage was dissipated, and part of the long interval between his admission and his call was spent in a debtor's prison. There he pursued his studies to such purpose that, on regaining his liberty, he practised with brilliant success in the Palace Court, in Westminster Hall, and, after the Restoration, in the House of Lords; and on 21 April 1675 he was called to the degree of serjeant-at-law. On 28 May following the House of Commons committed him to the custody of John Topham, the sergeant-at-arms attending the house, for an alleged breach of privilege,—viz. his appearance before the House of Lords for the plaintiff appellant in the case of Crisp v. Dalmahoy, M.P. for Guildford. The affair caused a violent contention between the two houses of parliament. Pemberton, who under the ægis of black rod had defied the sergeant-at-arms, was eventually arrested (4 June) by the speaker in Westminster Hall, and lodged in the Tower, where, notwithstanding a writ of habeas corpus issued by the upper house on his behalf, he remained until the unseemly struggle was terminated by a prorogation (9 June). On 11 Aug. the same year he was made king's serjeant, and on 6 Oct. following was knighted at Whitehall. He succeeded Sir William Wylde [q. v.] as puisne judge of the king's bench on 5 May 1679, and assisted Scroggs in several of the ‘popish plot’ trials. He proved, however, not sufficiently partial, and had his quietus on 16 Feb. 1679–80. Nevertheless, on 11 April 1681, he succeeded Scroggs as lord chief justice of the king's bench.

His advancement was perhaps intended to give an air of judicial decorum to the trial of Edward Fitzharris [q. v.] But various