Britton, John [Hrsg.]: The fine arts of the English school: illustrated by a series of engravings from paintings, sculpture, and architecture, of eminent English artists ; with ample biographical, critical, and descriptive essays (London, 1812) [Cicognara, 14]

a brief

BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR

OF

JOHN DUNNING, LORD ASHBURTON;

BY JOHN ADOLPHUS, ESQ. P S A.

WITH AN ENGRAVED PORTRAIT BY W. BOND, FROM A PICTURE BY

©it losftua IRepnolDS.

The lives of lawyers, however distinguished they may have been in their
profession, seldom afford ample or interesting materials for biography. Of
Mr. Dunning, eminent as he was, only a few unsatisfactory traces are to be found
in the books of the law reporters. His efforts in parliament are more distinctly
recorded; but even the perusal of them will not present so complete a picture
of his talents as might have been gained, if, in only a few instances, he had
published his own speeches, or revised the reports of them collected by other
persons.

John Dunning, descended from an ancient family, was born at Ashburton,
in Devonshire, the 18th of October, 17-31, and received, by the care of his
father, who intended him for the profession of the law, a liberal education.
Of his first essays at the bar no exact memorials are preserved; but his name
begins to be recorded in the books of Reports about the year 1759, when he
was only twenty-eight years old. Soon after this period he was, if not first,
in the very first line of practice ; he was elected Recorder of Bristol, and,
on the 6th of January, 1768, Mr. Willes being appointed one of the Judges
of the Court of King's Bench, Mr. Dunning succeeded him in the office of
Solicitor-General. On the dissolution of parliament, in the same year, he

B