advocate), he obtained a considerable practice. His vast store of learning even in obsolete law was shown to advantage in the case Ashford v. Thornton (1 Barnewall and Alderson's Reports, p. 405), in which he successfully claimed for his client the right of wager of battle, a feat which produced the statute 59 George III, c. 46, abolishing this right for the future. Brougham and Parke (afterwards Lord Wensleydale) were among his pupils. He was subsequently with Brougham as counsel for Queen Caroline (Life of Brougham, ii. 381), and had he not already been retained for the queen would have been engaged for the crown.
He entered parliament in 1824 as tory member for the Wigtown Burghs, and became solicitor-general in September 1826, when changes were occasioned by Copley's appointment to the mastership of the rolls. At the same time he received the honour of knighthood. In the same year he was returned to parliament for Harwich; but in 1827, Copley becoming lord chancellor, there was a vacancy in the representation of the university of Cambridge, and Tindal was elected by 479 votes against 378 for William John Bankes [q. v.] With characteristic modesty he declined to assert his claim to the attorney-generalship, either against James Scarlett (afterwards first Baron Abinger) [q. v.] in 1827 or against Sir Charles Wetherell [q. v.] in 1828 (Life of Lord Denman, i. 206). On 9 June 1829 he was appointed chief justice of the common pleas in succession to William Draper Best, first baron Wynford [q. v.], and occupied that position until his death. Among the celebrated cases he tried were Norton's action against Lord Melbourne for criminal conversation and the trials for murder of Courvoisier and MacNaghten. He attended to his duties to within ten days of his death, when he was seized with paralysis, and died at Folkestone on 6 July 1846. He was buried at Kensal Green cemetery. He left 45,000l. and freeholds at Chelmsford and Aylesbury.
He married, on 2 Sept. 1809, Merelina (d. 1818), youngest daughter of Thomas Symonds, captain, R.N., by whom he had four sons and a daughter. Of these the eldest, Rev. Nicholas Tindal, M.A., was vicar of Sandhurst in Gloucestershire, and predeceased him in 1842; and the youngest, Charles John, a barrister of Lincoln's Inn, died in 1853.
As a judge all Tindal's best qualities found the widest scope. His sagacity, impartiality, and plain sense, his industry and clear-sightedness, made him the admiration of non-professional spectators; while among lawyers he was very highly esteemed for an invariable kindness to all who appeared before him, for his grasp of principle, accuracy of statement, skill in analysis, and vast stores of case law. In his latter days he became somewhat procrastinating and eccentric, but he retained to the last the respect and affection of those who practised before him. He had considerable wit of a highly legal kind, of which several illustrations are given in Robinson's ‘Bench and Bar’ (pp. 153–8).
There is a portrait of Tindal by T. Philips, R.A., in the National Portrait Gallery, London. It was engraved by Henry Cousins.
[Gent. Mag. 1846, ii. 199; Daily News, 7 July 1846; Law Mag. v. 105; Ballantyne's Experiences; Foss's Lives of the Judges; Foster's Scottish Members of Parl.]
TINDAL, WILLIAM (1484-1536), translator of the New Testament. [See Tyndale.]
TINDAL, WILLIAM (1756–1804), antiquary, born at Chelmsford on 14 May 1756, was son of James Tindal (d. 1760), captain in the 4th regiment of dragoons, youngest son of Nicholas Tindal [q. v.] James married Miss Shenton, who, after his death, was married to Dr. Smith, a physician at Cheltenham and Oxford. At four years of age William and his mother went to reside with her brother, a minor canon of Chichester, and six years later they removed to Richmond. On 19 May 1772 he matriculated from Trinity College, Oxford, and was elected a scholar in the same year. He graduated B.A. in 1776 and M.A. in 1778, in which year he was ordained deacon and obtained a fellowship, which he held until his marriage. After serving as curate at Evesham, he became rector of Billingford in Norfolk in 1789, and on 6 July 1792 he was also instituted to the rectory of Kington, Worcestershire. In 1799 he exchanged the rectory of Billingford for the chaplainship of the Tower of London. In the same year he was elected a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries (Nichols, Lit. Illustr. vi. 772).
Tindal committed suicide at the Tower on 16 Sept. 1804 while in a state of mental depression. He married before 1794, and his wife survived him.
Besides writing several political pamphlets, he was the author of: 1. ‘Remarks on Dr. Johnson's Life and Critical Observations on the Works of Gray,’ 1782, 8vo. 2. ‘Juvenile Excursions in Literature and Criticism,’ London, 1791, 16mo. 3. ‘The History and Antiquities of the Abbey and Borough of Evesham,’ Evesham, 1794, 4to. The last work won high praise from Horace Walpole. Tindal is also said to have written
