James Bacon

Sir James Bacon (11 February 1798 – 1 June 1895) was a British judge and a Vice-Chancellor of the Court of Chancery.

Bacon was born at 10 The Polygon, Somers Town, London. His father had gone there from Holt, Norfolk, to work as an attorney's clerk in Clerkenwell. Bacon received part of his early education in Holt. He left school at twelve and worked for some years in the same attorney's firm, Rhodes and Cook, as he relates in his unpublished memoirs.

On 4 April 1822 he joined Gray's Inn and was called to the bar on 16 May 1827. As an impecunious young barrister he engaged in much literary work, such as translations from the French (including the first translation of Victor Hugo) and a pseudonymous “Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Lord Byron” which breached copyright outrageously. John Murray decided not to sue because copyright in works of doubtful moral character had become precarious following the case of William Lawrence. This work was illustrated by George Cruikshank and Bacon knew him and many literary and artistic personalities, including Charles Lamb and Mary Shelley.

He joined Lincoln's Inn in 1833 and became a bencher on 2 November 1846

He married Laura Cook, daughter of the attorney he and his father worked for, in 1827. She died in 1859. For many years he rented as a holiday home Compton Beauchamp House in Berkshire (now Oxfordshire). The couple had four sons together, two of whom predeceased the judge, and one daughter. Their granddaughter Arabella Susan Lawrence was one of the first Labour Party female MPs.