Lindley, Nathaniel Lindley

Lindley, Nathaniel Lindley, Baron (1828-  ), English judge, son of John Lindley (q.v.), was born at Acton Green, Middlesex, on the 29th of November 1828. He was educated at University College School, and studied for a time at University College, London. He was called to the bar at the Middle Temple in 1850, and began practice in the Court of Chancery. In 1855 he published An Introduction to the Study of Jurisprudence, consisting of a translation of the general part of Thibaut’s System des Pandekten Rechts, with copious notes. In 1860 he published in two volumes his Treatise on the Law of Partnership, including its Application to Joint Stock and other Companies, and in 1862 a supplement including the Companies Act of 1862. This work has since been developed into two text-books well known to lawyers as Lindley on Companies and Lindley on Partnership. He became a Q.C. in January 1872. In 1874 he was elected a bencher of the Middle Temple, of which he was treasurer in 1894. In 1875 he was appointed a justice of common pleas, the appointment of a chancery barrister to a common-law court being justified by the fusion of law and equity then shortly to be brought about, in theory at all events, by the Judicature Acts. In pursuance of the changes now made be became a justice of the common pleas division of the High Court of Justice, and in 1880 of the queen’s bench division. In 1881 he was raised to the Court of Appeal and made a privy councillor. In 1897, Lord Justice Lindley succeeded Lord Esher as master of the rolls, and in 1900 he was made a lord of appeal in ordinary with a life peerage and the title of Baron Lindley. He resigned the judicial post in 1905. Lord Lindley was the last serjeant-at-law appointed, and the last judge to wear the serjeant’s coif, or rather the black patch representing it, on the judicial wig. He married in 1858 Sarah Katherine, daughter of Edward John Teale of Leeds.