Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 45.djvu/194

 John George, Greville, and Robert Joseph, all of whom are separately noticed.

As a young man Phillimore appears to have had a transient connection with the ‘Edinburgh Review.’ He received the honorary degree of LL.D. from the university of Cambridge in 1834, was elected F.R.S. on 13 Feb. 1840, and a trustee of the Busby charity on 23 May the same year. At Oxford he was long remembered for the golden latinity and distinguished manner in which he discharged the duty incident to his chair of presenting strangers for degrees at commemoration.

Phillimore edited ‘Reports of Cases argued and determined in the Ecclesiastical Courts at Doctors' Commons and in the High Court of Delegates (1809–21),’ London, 1818–27, 3 vols. 8vo; and ‘Reports of Cases argued and determined in the Arches and Prerogative Courts of Canterbury,’ containing the judgments of Sir George Lee [q. v.], London, 1832–3, 3 vols. 8vo.

His ‘Speeches delivered in the Sheldon Theatre, at the Commemoration holden on the 10th, 11th, and 13th of June 1834, at which the Duke of Wellington presided in Person,’ were printed at Oxford the same year, 4to.

[Barker and Stenning's Westminster School Reg.; Welch's Alumni Westmonast.; Foster's Alumni Oxon. and Baronetage, ‘Phillimore;’ Kirkpatrick Sharpe's Corresp. i. 232; Oxford Univ. Cal. 1810; Lond. Gazette, 1833, p. 883; Haydn's Book of Dignities, ed. Ockerby; Members of Parliament (Official Lists); Cox's Recollections of Oxford, p. 75; Lord Colchester's Diary, iii. 38, 283; Gent. Mag. 1836 pt. ii. 423, 1855 pt. i. 319; Buckingham's Memoirs of the Court of England, 1811–20, ii. 211, and Memoirs of the Court of George IV. i. 253, 276, 279, 314, 319, ii. 304, 367.] 

PHILLIMORE, ROBERT JOSEPH (1810–1885), baronet, civilian and judge, third son of Joseph Phillimore [q. v.], was born at Whitehall on 5 Nov. 1810. In 1824 he was elected a Westminster scholar, went to Christ Church, Oxford, with a studentship in 1828, won the college prizes for Latin verse and Latin prose, and graduated B.A. with a second class in classics, 26 Jan. 1832, B.C.L. 14 May 1835, and D.C.L. 2 Nov. 1838. His college friendships were numerous, lasting, and important. With Mr. W. E. Gladstone he was intimate through life, and was the first person to propose him as candidate for the representation of Oxford. Stephen and Henry Glynne, Lord Canning, and George Anthony Denison, afterwards archdeacon of Taunton and his brother-in-law, were also his early friends.

From 20 Feb. 1832 to 6 April 1835 he held the post of a clerk in the office of the board of control. On 2 Nov. 1839 he was admitted an advocate at Doctors' Commons, and on 7 May 1841 was called to the bar at the Middle Temple, of which inn he ultimately became a bencher and treasurer. He at once obtained a considerable practice, and also soon received a number of ecclesiastical appointments. He became commissary of the deans and chapters of St. Paul's and Westminster, official to the archdeaconries of Middlesex and London in 1840, and successively chancellor of the dioceses of Chichester in 1844, Salisbury in 1845, and Oxford in 1855. He found some time, too, to devote to literature. He brought out several pamphlets—‘The Constitution as it is’ in 1837, a ‘Letter to Lord Ashburton’ in 1842, the ‘Case of the Creole’ in the same year—and some judgments of the ecclesiastical courts of special interest. His intimacy with the Grenville family, his father's friends, led to his being entrusted with the correspondence of George, lord Lyttelton, from 1734 to 1773, preserved at Hagley, which he edited with notes and published in 1845. His practice meantime was fast increasing; in his own department of the profession he appeared in almost every case of importance. He became judge of the Cinque ports in 1855, succeeded his father in the same year as admiralty advocate, was appointed a queen's counsel in 1858, when the probate and divorce court was established, and in 1862 was appointed queen's advocate and knighted. The American war, then raging, raised numbers of questions on which he, sometimes alone, sometimes with the attorney-general and the solicitor-general, was the responsible adviser of the ministry. Before his appointment the Alabama had put to sea, but his opinion was constantly taken by the foreign secretary on other international questions, until after the seizure of the confederate commissioners on board the British mail-steamer Trent, when he published a pamphlet, ‘The Seizure of the Southern Envoys.’

In 1847 he contested Tavistock and Coventry both unsuccessfully; but in 1852 he was elected for Tavistock as a liberal-conservative, and in parliament followed his friend Mr. Gladstone, and gave a general support to the government of Lord Aberdeen. In 1853, and also in 1854, he introduced bills for the amendment of the law relating to simony and the sale of next presentations; and in 1854, with the assistance of Lord Brougham, he introduced and carried the useful act (17 and 18 Vict. c. 47) which for