Admitted 2 March, 1617-8.
On the Register he is described as "Lionel Cranfeild, Knight," having received that dignity from James I., together with the office of Lieutenant of Dover Castle in 1613. He was originally a London apprentice who had risen to wealth and position as a merchant and member of the Mercers' Company, and who had attracted the attention of the King by the ability with which he represented that company before the Privy Council. After holding several other important offices, he was made Chief Commissioner of the Navy in 1619, in which position he effected great reforms and economies. In 1622 he was created a Peer with the title of Baron Cranfield, in recompense, it is said, for his loss of the Chancellorship, which it was expected he might have received after the fall of Bacon, and in the same year he was made Treasurer, with the higher title of Earl of Middlesex. In this position he was charged with receiving bribes, and in 1624 was deprived of all his offices, and committed to the Tower. After his release, he lived in retirement till his death 6 Aug. 1645.
Admitted 23 June, 1810.
Fourth son of Francis Cresswell of Blackheath. He was born at Newcastle, Northumberland (a county with which his family had been connected from very early times), in 1794, and educated at Charterhouse and Cambridge, where he graduated "wooden spoon," 1814. He entered the Inner Temple in 1815, and was called to the Bar in 1819. He joined the Northern Circuit, and soon acquired a considerable practice. In 1830 he was appointed Recorder of Hull, and in 1834 became King's Counsel. In 1837 he entered Parliament for Liverpool, as a supporter of Sir Robert Peel, by whom, in 1842, he was appointed a Puisne Judge of the Common Pleas. His reputation, however, as a Judge, was made at the Divorce Court, to which he was appointed on its creation in 1858. He died 29 July, 1863, his death being the result of his being run over by a carriage on Constitution Hill on the 11th of the same month.
The Law Reports known as Barnewall and Cresswell's (King's Bench) Reports (1822—1830), are a monument to his memory.
Admitted 14 January, 1840.
Eldest son of the Rev. H. Cripps of Preston, Gloucestershire. He was admitted from Lincoln's Inn, called to the Bar 8 May, 1840, and took silk in 1866. He was called to the Bench in the same year, and became Treasurer in 1880, having been made Recorder of Lichfield in 1852. His practice lay at the Parliamentary Bar, where for many years he was among the leading counsel, and he was also an authority on ecclesiastical law, being Chancellor of the Diocese of Oxford.
His work on The Church and Clergy, first published in 1845, reached its sixth edition in 1886. He also published a volume of Cases on the same subject. He took a keen interest in the affairs of his county, Buckingham, and was unanimously elected first chairman of the county council, and was besides an active magistrate, chairman and vice-chairman of quarter sessions for a quarter of a century.
