Family and Education

b. 1 Jan. 1754, 1st s. of Capt. Edward Jekyll, R.N., of Haverfordwest by Elizabeth, da. of Thomas Walker of Killiver, Carm.  educ. Westminster 1766-70; Ch. Ch. Oxf. 1771; L. Inn 1769, called 1778.  m. 20 Aug. 1801, Maria, da. of Hans Sloane, 2s.

Offices Held

Bencher, I. Temple 1805; solicitor-gen. to Prince of Wales and K.C. 1805; reader, I. Temple 1814, treasurer 1816; commr. of lunacy and master in Chancery 1816.

Biography

Jekyll was returned for Calne on Lord Lansdowne’s interest; voted with the Administration on Impey’s impeachment and during the Regency crisis; and spoke a few times in the House, 1789-1790, mainly on legal matters. In the Dictionary of National Biography W. P. Courtney classes him as a ‘wit’. But Lady Susan O’Brien, having dined in his company during the Dorchester assizes, wrote in her ‘Journal’ on 25 July 1806: ‘quite disagreeable, such endless attempts at wit and spinning every idea threadbare as to be quite wearisome to the hearers.’1 Some of his jeux d’esprit have been reproduced, but it requires an effort to read them.2

Jekyll died 8 Mar. 1837.

Ref Volumes: 1754-1790

Author: Sir Lewis Namier

Notes

• 1. Lord Ilchester’s mss.
• 2. N. Q. (ser. 1), x. 172; Fitzmaurice, Shelburne, ii. 416-18.