author
Sir Edward Hall Alderson
1787–1857
A sharp-minded English judge of the Victorian era, he became known for clear, influential rulings that helped shape commercial law. His life also links the courtroom to British political history through his daughter, Georgina, later Marchioness of Salisbury.
2 Audiobooks
A Second Letter to the Bishop of Exeter
by Sir Edward Hall Alderson
A Letter to the Bishop of Exeter
by Sir Edward Hall Alderson
About the author
Born in 1787 and baptized in Great Yarmouth, Sir Edward Hall Alderson was the eldest son of Robert Alderson, a recorder in several East Anglian towns. He studied at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, where he built a strong reputation in classics and mathematics before entering the law.
Alderson was called to the bar at the Inner Temple and went on to become a respected lawyer and judge. In 1834 he was appointed a Baron of the Exchequer, and he is especially remembered for judgments in commercial cases that carried lasting influence in nineteenth-century England.
He died in 1857. Beyond his legal work, he is often noted as the father of Georgina Alderson, who married Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, later the 3rd Marquess of Salisbury, connecting his family to one of the best-known political households of the period.