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Sir William Lee PC (2 August 1688 – 8 April 1754) was a British jurist and politician.

Life

He was the second son of Sir Thomas Lee, 2nd Baronet. He matriculated at Wadham College, Oxford in 1704, shortly after entering the Middle Temple; he did not take a degree, but was called to the bar in 1710. Member of Parliament for Wycombe from 1727 until 1730, he gave up the seat when he became a Justice of the King's Bench.

Lee was Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales from 8 June 1737 until his sudden death in 1754. He was appointed formally as Chancellor of the Exchequer as a temporary expedient on 8 March 1754, when Henry Pelham died, with his brother Sir George Lee as Under Treasurer of the Exchequer, until 6 April, his own death.

Lord Campbell noted that Lee "certainly stood up for the rights of woman more strenuously than any English judge before or since his time".

Notes

1. ^ Lemmings, David. "Lee, Sir William". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/16315. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)

References

• J. C. D. Clark, The Dynamics of Change: The Crisis of the 1750s and English Party Systems (Cambridge University Press, 2002).
• Lord Campbell, The Lives of the Chief Justices of England: Volume III (Cockcroft and Co, 1878).

• Lord chief justices of England and Wales
• Chancellors of the Exchequer of Great Britain
• 1688 births
• 1754 deaths
• Justices of the King's Bench
• Members of the Parliament of Great Britain for English constituencies
• British MPs 1727–1734
• Members of the Privy Council of Great Britain
• Lords of the Manor of Totteridge
• Younger sons of baronets