X-Nico

9 unusual facts about Solicitor General for England and Wales


Baron Sandhurst

He was the grandson of Sir James Mansfield, Solicitor-General and Chief Justice of the Common Pleas.

Francis North, 1st Baron Guilford

Guilford had been an eminent lawyer, Solicitor-General (1671), Attorney-General (1673), and Chief Justice of the Common Pleas (1675), and in 1679 was made a member of the Council of Thirty and, on its dissolution, of the Cabinet.

Jonathan Djanogly

Djanogly has been Trade and Industry Spokesman shadowing the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform, Shadow Solicitor General for England and Wales and was the Parliamentary Under-secretary of State at the Ministry of Justice from 2010–2012.

He served on the Trade and Industry Select Committee from 2001, was promoted to the frontbench by Michael Howard as an opposition spokesman on Home Affairs in 2004, and served as Shadow Solicitor General between May 2004 and May 2010.

Lechmere baronets

Other members of the family include Sir Nicholas Lechmere, a Baron of the Exchequer during the reign of King William III and Member of Parliament for Bewdley, and his grandson Nicholas Lechmere, 1st Baron Lechmere, Solicitor-General, Attorney-General and Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster.

Lochbuie, Mull

This island is named after Frank Lockwood who was Solicitor General for England and Wales from 1894 to 1895 and the brother-in-law of the 21st MacLean of Lochbuie.

Newport by-election, 1956

The Labour candidate was Sir Frank Soskice, who had been Solicitor General and then Attorney General in the Labour Government 1945-1951.

Thomas Coventry, 1st Baron Coventry

On 14 March 1617 he was appointed Solicitor General and was knighted.

Thomas Sewell

In 1761, Sewell was one of two candidates considered for appointment as Solicitor General, but the post went instead to Fletcher Norton. However, in 1764 he was knighted and appointed Master of the Rolls, apparently to the surprise of many including himself, after a number of other candidates had refused the post; he held it until his death twenty years later.


Daniel M'Naghten

The case was prosecuted by the solicitor-general, Sir William Follett (the attorney-general being busy in Lancaster prosecuting Feargus O'Connor and 57 other Chartists following the plug riots).

Harry Morris, 1st Baron Morris of Kenwood

However, he resigned his seat four weeks later, on 20 March, (by taking the Stewardship of the Manor of Northstead) to make way for the former Solicitor General Sir Frank Soskice, whose Birkenhead East constituency had been abolished.

Numa Edward Hartog

Within weeks, Solicitor-General John Coleridge of the Gladstone government introduced legislation to rectify the situation.

Robert Gifford, 1st Baron Gifford

Gifford was elected to the House of Commons for Eye in 1817, a seat he represented until 1824, and served under the Earl of Liverpool as Solicitor General between 1817 and 1819 and as Attorney General between 1819 and 1824.

Thomas Wallace, 1st Baron Wallace

Wallace was the son of James Wallace (1729–1783), a barrister who served as Solicitor General for England and Wales and as Attorney General, by Elizabeth, only daughter and sole heiress of Thomas Simpson, Esquire, of Carleton Hall, Cumberland.


see also