1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Kelly, Sir Fitzroy

21926241911 Encyclopædia Britannica, Volume 15 — Kelly, Sir Fitzroy

KELLY, SIR FITZROY (1796–1880), English judge, was born in London in October 1796, the son of a captain in the Royal Navy. In 1824 he was called to the bar, where he gained a reputation as a skilled pleader. In 1834 he was made a king’s counsel. A strong Tory, he was returned as member of parliament for Ipswich in 1835, but was unseated on petition. In 1837 however he again became member for that town. In 1843 he sat for Cambridge, and in 1852 was elected member for Harwich, but, a vacancy suddenly occurring in East Suffolk, he preferred to contest that seat and was elected. He was solicitor-general in 1845 (when he was knighted), and again in 1852. In 1858–1859 he was attorney-general in Lord Derby’s second administration. In 1866 he was raised to the bench as chief baron of the exchequer and made a member of the Privy Council. He died at Brighton on the 18th of September 1880.

See E. Foss, Lives of the Judges (1870).