Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 51.djvu/347

Shadwell queen's illness in December 1713–14 in Boyer's ‘History of the Reign of Queen Anne’ are derived from Shadwell's letters to the Duke and Duchess of Shrewsbury. Boyer recorded Shadwell's opinion that the queen died of ‘gouty humour translating itself upon the brain.’ He continued to be physician in ordinary to George I and George II, and was knighted on 12 June 1715. He long resided in Windmill Street, and in 1735 withdrew from practice and retired to France, where he remained until 1740. He died at Windmill Street on 4 Jan. 1747. He was buried on 8 Jan. at Bath Abbey, where there is a tomb with an elaborate epitaph to his memory.

Sir John Shadwell was twice married; by his first wife, who died on 14 April 1722, he had issued one son and three daughters. He married, secondly, Ann Binns, at Somerset House chapel, on 12 March 1725; and on 29 June 1731 he made his will in her favour. Lady Shadwell survived until 1777.

[Munk's Coll. of Phys.; Gent. Mag.; Genealogist, new ser. vi. 98; Foster's Alumni Oxon.; Historical Reg. 1722; Malcolm's Londinium Redivivum, iv. 295.]

 SHADWELL, LANCELOT (1779–1850), last vice-chancellor of England, eldest son of Lancelot Shadwell of Lincoln's Inn, barrister-at-law, an eminent conveyancer, by his wife Elizabeth, third daughter of Charles Whitmore of Southampton, was born on 3 May 1779. He was educated at Eton, and subsequently went to St. John's College, Cambridge, where, in 1800, he became seventh wrangler, obtained the second chancellor's medal, and graduated B.A. He was elected a fellow of his college on 23 March 1801, graduated M.A. in 1803, and received the honorary degree of LL.D. in 1842. Shadwell was admitted a member of Lincoln's Inn on 30 June 1797, and was called to the bar on 10 Feb. 1803. After practising eighteen years with much success as a junior in the court of chancery, he was appointed a king's counsel on 8 Dec. 1821, and took his seat within the bar on the first day of Hilary term 1822 (, Reports of Cases in the Common Pleas and Exchequer Chamber, 1824, vi. 441). In spite of much pecuniary loss, he refused to follow the practice then prevalent of taking briefs in more than one equity court, and honourably confined himself to practising before the lord chancellor, not being able, as he said, ‘to induce himself to think that it is consistent with justice, much less with honour, to undertake to lead a cause and either forsake it altogether or give it an imperfect, hasty, and divided attention—consequences that inevitably result from the attempt to conduct causes before two judges sitting at the same time in different places’ (Gent. Mag. 1850, ii. 545). At the general election in June 1826 Shadwell obtained a seat in the House of Commons for the borough of Ripon through the influence of Miss Elizabeth Sophia Lawrence [see ], under whose will he subsequently received a handsome bequest. On 14 Feb. 1827 he introduced a bill for the limitation of a writ of right and for the amendment of the law of dower, but it did not get beyond the committee stage (Parliamentary Debates, 2nd ser. xvi. 471–3, 474–5, xvii. 94, 174). His parliamentary career was short, for on 31 Oct. 1827 he was appointed vice-chancellor of England in the place of Sir Anthony Hart (London Gazette, 1827, ii. 2250). On 16 Nov. following he was sworn a member of the privy council and knighted (ib. 1827, ii. 2385, 2386). He presided in the vice-chancellor's court for nearly twenty-three years. During this period he twice filled the office of a commissioner of the great seal: from 23 April 1835 to 16 Jan. 1836 in conjunction with Sir C. C. Pepys (afterwards Lord Cottenham) and Sir J. B. Bosanquet, and again from 19 June to 15 July 1850 in conjunction with Lord Langdale and Sir R. M. Rolfe (afterwards Lord Cranworth). On 24 June he was seized with a sudden illness, which prevented him from sitting again during the continuance of the second commission. He died at his residence, Barn Elms, Surrey, on 10 Aug. 1850, aged 71, and was buried in Barnes churchyard.

Shadwell married, first, on 8 Jan. 1805, Harriet, daughter of Anthony Richardson of Powis Place, Great Ormond Street, a London merchant, and sister of Sir John Richardson, some time a justice of the common pleas, by whom he had Sir Charles Frederick Alexander Shadwell [q. v.], and five other sons. His first wife died on 25 May 1814, and on 4 Jan. 1816 he married, secondly, Frances, third and youngest daughter of Captain Locke, by whom he had six sons and five daughters. Shadwell's second wife died on 27 Oct. 1854, aged 66.

Shadwell, who was the last ‘vice-chancellor of England,’ was a learned and able judge, with a handsome presence and courteous manners. Of his complete subjection to Bethell, the leader of his court, many stories are told (see, Life of Richard, Lord Westbury, 1888, i. 69, 84–5, 95). He was president of the Society of Psychrolutes, the qualification for the membership of that body being the daily practice of bathing out