Sir Humphrey Davenport was Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer in the reign of Charles I., and had a distinguished legal career. He was the fourth son of William Davenport of Bramhall, near Stockport. Sir Peter Warburton of Grafton, one of the Judges of the King’s Bench about the same period, was also a Cheshire man. Another great lawyer was Richard Peter Arden, Lord Alvanley, born at Bredbury in 1745. In 1780 he became King’s Counsel, M.P. for Newton in the Isle of Wight, Master of the Rolls, and, in 1801, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, when he was created Lord Alvanley, taking his title from a manor in the parish of Frodsham which had been held by his ancestors. He was a somewhat outspoken, hasty, and flippant judge, and amusing stories are told of his sayings in court and of his disputes with Lord Chancellor Thurlow. Chief Justice Williams was the son of a rector of Bunbury, where he was born in 1777, and had a brilliant legal career. His reputation was made at the trial of Queen Caroline, whose junior counsel he was, with Mr. Brougham, afterwards Lord Brougham, as his senior. His able advocacy was the chief cause of the vindication of the unfortunate Queen. He was returned to Parliament for Lincoln in 1823, became Attorney-General in 1830, and Puisne Judge of the King’s Bench four years later, when he was made a knight. A volume of Greek epigrams testifies to his devotion to classical studies. The last Cheshire lawyer on our list is Lord Kenyon. Though not actually born in the county, his native place being Greddington, just over the border in Flintshire, he had a Cheshire lady for his mother, and began his career at an attorney’s office in Nantwich. He might have spent his life there, having been offered a partnership; but he soared higher, went to London, and was called to the Bar in 1756. He was M.P. for Hindon and Chief Justice of Chester in 1780, and was engaged in the defence of Lord George Gordon in that memorable trial of the Gordon rioters. After being Attorney-General and Master of the Rolls, he was created a baronet, raised to the peerage, and appointed Chief Justice in 1788. He was noted for his parsimonious ways, relics of his early poverty; but his biographers assert that few lawyers so able, and none more honest, ever entered Westminster Hall. SCIENTISTS Edward Brerewood, the son of a Chester tradesman, born in 1565, was a celebrated mathematician and antiquary. From the Free School at Chester he went to Oxford, and became the first professor of astronomy in Gresham College. Several of his works were published after his death by his nephew, Robert Brerewood, of Chester.