Edward Hall Alderson

Sir Edward Hall Alderson (baptised 11 September 1787 – 27 January 1857) was an English lawyer and judge whose many judgments on commercial law helped to shape the emerging British capitalism of the Victorian era.

He was a Baron of the Exchequer and so held the honorary title Baron Alderson, in print Alderson, B.

Early life Born in Great Yarmouth, Alderson was the eldest son of Robert (died 1833), a barrister and recorder, and Elizabeth née Hurry who died in 1791. Alderson suffered an unstable childhood, variously living with relatives, unhappily attending Charterhouse School but, more positively, being tutored by Edward Maltby.

A pupil of Joseph Chitty, Alderson was called to the bar in 1811 at the Inner Temple and began work on the northern circuit where he established a substantial practice. He joined with Richard Barnewall as a law reporter from 1817 to 1822. On 26 October 1823 he married Georgina Drewe (died 1871) and the couple had many children.

Judicial career Alderson was appointed to the Common Law Commission in 1828 and a judge of the Court of Common Pleas in 1830, with the attendant knighthood. He became a Baron of the Exchequer in the Exchequer of Pleas in 1834. He was an advocate of the plasticity of the common law in adapting to the changing times. According to Hedley, he was popular and jocular, a "clever, analytical, and forthright judge, with little patience for those of lesser abilities". He never sought to be a Queen's Counsel or Member of Parliament.

While sitting at Liverpool assizes in December 1856, he heard of a serious injury to one of his sons and collapsed. He died the following January at his London home from a brain disease. He was buried at St Mary Magdalen's Church, Risby, near Bury St Edmunds.

His grandson, Edward Alderson, served as Clerk to the Parliaments between 1930 and 1934.

Cases Miller v. Salomons - oath of abjuration R v Pritchard (1836) 7 C. & P. 303 continues to be used in modern criminal cases in England and Wales as having laid down the criteria for assessing a defendant's fitness to plead. Hodge’s Case (1838), 2 Lewin 227, 168 E.R. 1136 - an explanation to the jury of the meaning and dangers of circumstantial evidence, required to be given as a separate direction to the jury until 1973. Winterbottom v. Wright (1842) – Reasserted the traditional doctrine of privity of contract to dismiss a negligence claim for damages by a pedestrian who was injured by a defective vehicle. Wood v Peel (1844) – in a trial to determine the winner of the Derby, Alderson ordered that the purported winner Running Rein be produced in court. The horse could not be found and the result of the race was overturned. R v. Serva and others R v. Griffin (1853) – Alderson suggested, contrary to precedent but obiter dicta, that the principle of priest-penitent privilege applied in England. Neilson v Harford (1841) – Distinguished patenting a principle (impermissible) from patenting a physical implementation of a principle (permissible) White v Bluett Knight (Clerk) v. The Marquess of Waterford Hadley v Baxendale (1854) – Defined the scope of contractual damages in English law. Blyth v Company Proprietors of the Birmingham Water Works (1856) – Introduced the concept of the reasonable person in setting judicial standards for the appropriate level of care owed to another.