Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Puleston, John
PULESTON, JOHN (d. 1659), judge, a member of an old Flintshire family, was son of Richard Puleston of Emral, Flintshire, by Alice, his wife, daughter of David Lewis of Burcott in Oxfordshire. He was a member of the Middle Temple, and reader of his inn in 1634, was recommended by the commons as a baron of the exchequer in February 1643, and, the king not appointing him, received by their order the degree of serjeant on 12 Oct. 1648. He was appointed by parliament a judge of the common pleas on 1 June 1649, and with Baron Thorpe tried John Morris (1617?–1649) [q. v.], governor of Pontefract Castle, at York assizes for high treason in August of the same year. He was also, with Mr. Justice Jermyn, appointed in the same year to try Lieutenant-colonel John Lilburne (State Papers, Dom. 1649, p. 335), was a commissioner in April 1650, under the proposed act for establishing a high court of justice, and was placed in the commission of December 1650 for the trial of offenders in Norfolk. Apparently Cromwell, on becoming Protector in 1653, did not renew his patent. He died 5 Sept. 1659. His wife Elizabeth, daughter of Sir John Woolrych, predeceased him in 1658. By her he had two sons, to whom Philip Henry [q. v.] was appointed tutor on 30 Sept. 1653. His nephew, Hamlet Puleston, is separately noticed.
[Foss's Judges of England; Dugdale's Origines, p. 220; Clarendon's Rebellion, bk. vi. par. 231; Whitelocke's Memorials, pp. 342, 405; State Trials, iv. 1249; Life of Philip Henry, by Matthew Henry.]