Sir Edward Hyde East, 1st Baronet (1764–1847) was a British

Great Britain

Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...

 member of parliament, legal writer, and judge

Judge

A judge is a person who presides over court proceedings, either alone or as part of a panel of judges. The powers, functions, method of appointment, discipline, and training of judges vary widely across different jurisdictions. The judge is supposed to conduct the trial impartially and in an open...

 in India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

. He served as chief justice

Chief Justice

The Chief Justice in many countries is the name for the presiding member of a Supreme Court in Commonwealth or other countries with an Anglo-Saxon justice system based on English common law, such as the Supreme Court of Canada, the Constitutional Court of South Africa, the Court of Final Appeal of...

 of Calcutta from 1813 to 1822.

Edward East was the great-grandson of Captain John East, who was active in the conquest of Jamaica

Jamaica

Jamaica is an island nation of the Greater Antilles, in length, up to in width and 10,990 square kilometres in area. It is situated in the Caribbean Sea, about south of Cuba, and west of Hispaniola, the island harbouring the nation-states Haiti and the Dominican Republic...

, and obtained an estate there. He was born in that island on 9 September 1764. He became a student of the Inner Temple

Inner Temple

The Honourable Society of the Inner Temple, commonly known as Inner Temple, is one of the four Inns of Court in London. To be called to the Bar and practise as a barrister in England and Wales, an individual must belong to one of these Inns...

, London, and was called to the bar on 10 November 1786. He sat in the parliament of 1792 for Great Bedwin

Great Bedwyn (UK Parliament constituency)

Great Bedwyn was a parliamentary borough in Wiltshire, which elected two Members of Parliament to the House of Commons from 1295 until 1832, when the borough was abolished by the Great Reform Act.-1295–1640:-1640–1832:Notes...

, and steadily supported William Pitt

William Pitt the Younger

William Pitt the Younger was a British politician of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. He became the youngest Prime Minister in 1783 at the age of 24 . He left office in 1801, but was Prime Minister again from 1804 until his death in 1806...

. In 1813 he was chosen to succeed Sir Henry Russell

Sir Henry Russell, 1st Baronet

Sir Henry Russell was a British lawyer. He was made a Privy Counsellor in 1816, during the reign of George III. The Russell baronetcy of Swallowfield in Berkshire, was created in the Baronetage of the United Kingdom on 10 December 1812 for him...

 as chief justice of the supreme court at Fort William, Bengal

Bengal Presidency

The Bengal Presidency originally comprising east and west Bengal, was a colonial region of the British Empire in South-Asia and beyond it. It comprised areas which are now within Bangladesh, and the present day Indian States of West Bengal, Assam, Bihar, Meghalaya, Orissa and Tripura.Penang and...

 (such is the correct designation). Before he left England he was knighted

Knight Bachelor

The rank of Knight Bachelor is a part of the British honours system. It is the most basic rank of a man who has been knighted by the monarch but not as a member of one of the organised Orders of Chivalry...

 by the Prince Regent

George IV of the United Kingdom

George IV was the King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and also of Hanover from the death of his father, George III, on 29 January 1820 until his own death ten years later...

. Besides performing his judicial duties, he interested himself in the cause of native education, and was the chief promoter of the Hindu College

Presidency College, Kolkata

Presidency University, Kolkata, formerly Hindu College and Presidency College, is a unitary, state aided university, located in Kolkata, West Bengal. and one of the premier institutes of learning of liberal arts and sciences in India. In 2002 it was ranked number one by the weekly news magazine...

. When he retired from office in 1822 the Indians presented him with an address and subscribed for a statue of him. This, executed by Francis Chantrey, was afterwards placed in the grand-jury room of the supreme court. On his return, East was made a baronet

Baronet

A baronet or the rare female equivalent, a baronetess , is the holder of a hereditary baronetcy awarded by the British Crown...

, on 25 April 1823.

He represented Winchester in parliament from 1823–31, was sworn of the Privy Council, and appointed a member of the judicial committee of that body, in order to assist in the disposal of Indian appeals. He was also chosen a bencher of the Inner Temple and a fellow of the Royal Society

Royal Society

The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, known simply as the Royal Society, is a learned society for science, and is possibly the oldest such society in existence. Founded in November 1660, it was granted a Royal Charter by King Charles II as the "Royal Society of London"...

. East was married in 1786, and had a son and daughter. The son, James Buller East

Sir James Buller East, 2nd Baronet

Sir James Buller East, 2nd Baronet was a British barrister.East, eldest son of Sir Edward Hyde East, was born in Bloomsbury, London, on 1 February 1789. He was educated at Harrow and at Christ Church, Oxford, where he proceeded B.A. in 1810, M.A. in 1824, and was created a Doctor of Civil Law on...

, succeeded him in the title. East died at his residence, Sherwood Lodge, Battersea

Battersea

Battersea is an area of the London Borough of Wandsworth, England. It is an inner-city district of South London, situated on the south side of the River Thames, 2.9 miles south-west of Charing Cross. Battersea spans from Fairfield in the west to Queenstown in the east...

, on 8 January 1847. His wife predeceased him by three years.

East is chiefly known as a legal writer from his Reports of Cases in the Court of King's Bench from Mich. Term, 26 Geo. III (1785), to Trin. Term, 40 Geo. III (1800) (8vo

Octavo (book)

Octavo is a technical term describing the format of a book, which refers to the size of leaves produced from folding a full sheet of paper on which multiple pages of text were printed to form the individual sections of a book...

, 5 vols., 1817, by C. Durnford and E. H. East). These were the first law reports published regularly at the end of each term. Hence they were called the Term Reports. They were continued by East alone in his Reports of Cases argued and determined in the Court of King's Bench from Mich. Term, 41 Geo. III (1800), to Mich. Term, 53 Geo. III (1812), 1801, 1814. There are various American editions of both series. "No English reports", says Marvin, "are oftener cited in American courts than these" (Marvin, p. 282). East also wrote:

1. Pleas of the Crown; or a General Treatise on the Principles and Practice of Criminal Law, 2 vols. 1803. This, the result of fifteen years' labour, is based partly on a careful study of previous writers and on private collections of cases.
2. A Report of the Cases of Sir Francis Burdett against the Right Hon. Charles Abbott, 1811.

External links

• Edward Hyde East, Treatise of Pleas of the Crown vol.1, 1803 Edition (London).
• Edward Hyde East, Treatise of Pleas of the Crown vol.1, 1806 Edition (Philadelphia).
• Edward Hyde East, Treatise of Pleas of the Crown vol.2, 1806 Edition (Philadelphia).