Lincoln's Inn

Lincoln's Inn

One of the Inns of Court on the west side of Chancery Lane, outside the City boundary.

The name seems to have been originally applied to what was afterwards the town house of the Abbot of Malmesbury, on the south side of Holborn, east of Staple Inn, for in the Cartulary of the Abbey in the British Museum (Cott. MS. Faustina, B. VIII.) the house is referred to as "totum hospicium nostrum vocatum Lyncolnesynne." It appears from the Cartulary that the property originally belonged to Thomas Lincoln, who may have given his name to the house. He seems to have been a counter or serjeant, practising in the Court of Common Pleas, temp. Ed. III., and after he disposed of his Holborn property he may have gone to Chancery Lane, to the site of the present Lincoln's Inn, at that time in the possession of the bishops of Chichester.

The history of the Inn does not come within the scope of this work.

Lincoln's-Inn,—on the W. side of Chancery-lane, op. 40, about ⅕ of a mile on the L. from 194, Fleet-street.

Lincoln's-Inn, one of the four Inns of Court, is situated on the west side of Chancery-lane, where formerly stood the palace of the Bishop of Chichester, and a monastery of Blackfriars, erected about the year 1226; but both coming to Henry Lacey, Earl of Lincoln, he built in their stead a splendid mansion for his town residence, wherein, some time before his death, he introduced the study of the law. This Mansion reverted to the Bishops of Chichester, and was demised by Robert Sherborn, Bishop of that see, to William Syliard, a student therein, for a term of years, at the expiration of which Dr. Richard Sampson, the bishop's successor, passed the inheritance in 1536 to the said William Syliard and Eustace, his brother; the latter of whom conveyed the house and gardens in fee to Richard Kingsmill, and the rest of the benchers.

It consists of several rows of chambers, a spacious hall, often used by the Lord Chancellor, and a chapel designed by Inigo Jones.

The Society of Lincoln's-inn was established in 1310, and its present officers are, William Horne, Esq., Treasurer; William Wingfield, Esq., Librarian; Sir Griffin Wilson, Dean of the Chapel; Henry Brougham, Esq., M.P., Keeper of the Records; Thomas Denman, Esq., Master of the Walks; the Rev. C. Hotham, M.A., Chaplain; the Rev. Edward Maltby, D.D., Preacher; the Rev. Forbes Raymond, A.M., Assistant; Mr. Thomas Lane, Steward; Mr. Joseph Sisserson, Clerk.

Lincoln's Inn, an Inn of Court, with two Inns of Chancery attached, Furnival's Inn and Thavie's Inn, situate between Chancery Lane and Lincoln's Inn Fields. In 1221, when Gilbert de Fraxineto and his thirteen Black Friars came into England, they were assigned a piece of ground "without the wall of the City by Oldborne [Holborn] near unto the old Temple," on which they erected a monastery facing Holborn. In the time of Edward I. this building and land passed into the possession of the last of the De Lacies, Earls of Lincoln, who in 1295 had so fine a garden on the spot that a sum equal to £135 of our currency was obtained by the sale of the fruit of that year. Henri de Laci died in 1312 without male issue, but the property had previously—it is not known in what way—come into the possession of the "Professors of the Law," still, however, retaining the name of Lincoln's Inn. Adjoining to this was a mansion belonging to Ralph Nevil, Bishop of Chichester, the memory of which is still preserved in Bishop's Court and Chichester Rents, both running out of Chancery Lane. This was in the first instance rented by the lawyers, but from time to time they improved their footing, and in 1580 became its absolute owners.¹ The buildings of Lincoln's Inn comprise besides the entrance gatehouse in Chancery Lane, the (old and new) Halls, the Library, and the Chapel; Stone Buildings, Old Square (also called Old Buildings), New Square, and the New Chambers, of most of which notices will be found under their several titles. The gatehouse of brick in Chancery Lane (the oldest part of the existing building) was built by Sir Thomas Lovell, K.G., son of the executor of Henry VII., and bears the date upon it of 1518. The chambers adjoining are of a somewhat later period, and it is to this part perhaps that Fuller alludes when he says that, "He [Ben Jonson] helped in the building of the new structure of Lincoln's Inn, when having a trowel in one hand, he had a book in his pocket."

Eminent Students.—Judge Fortescue; Sir Thomas More; Lord Keeper Egerton; Dr. Donne, the poet and divine, for a brief period; Oliver Cromwell (according to tradition), and, in 1648, bis son Richard; Attorney-General Noy; Sir Henry Spelman; Colonel Hutchinson, who "found the study of the law unpleasant and contrary to his genius"; Prynne; Sir Matthew Hale; Sir John Denham; George Wither; Rushworth; John Asgill; Lord Shaftesbury; Horace Walpole—

I was entered at Lincoln's Inn, May 27, 1731, my father intending me for the law; but I never went thither, not caring for the profession.—H. Walpole, Short Notes of my Life (Letters, vol. i. p. 65).

David Garrick—

March 9, 1736.—David Garrick, gentleman, second son of Captain Peter Garrick.

Lord Mansfield; William Pitt—Pitt wanted to purchase chambers in 1778, and wrote to his mother for £1000, "a frightful sum";—Lord Erskine; Lord Sidmouth; Mr. Canning; Lord Lyndhurst, Brougham, Cottenham, and Campbell; Sir E. Sugden; John Gait; Connop Thirlwall (Bishop of St. Davids), etc

The registers of Lincoln's Inn commence in the reign of Henry VI. Those of the other Inns of Court begin much later.¹

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¹ Stow, p. 163; Sir Geo. Buc in Howe's Stow, ed. 1631, p. 1072; and see Cooper's Melmoth p. 318.

¹ Fosse's Judges, vol. v. p. 951.