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Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Boteler, William Fuller

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1313812Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 05 — Boteler, William Fuller1886George Fisher Russell Barker

BOTELER, WILLIAM FULLER (1777–1845), commissioner of bankruptcy, was the only son of William Boteler, F.S.A., of Brook Street, Eastry, Kent, by his first wife Sarah, daughter of Thomas Fuller, of Statenborough, Kent. He was born on 5 Jan. 1777, and was educated, under Dr. Raine, at Charterhouse, and afterwards at St. John's College, Cambridge. He was senior Wrangler and first Smith’s prizeman for 1799, and in the same year graduated B.A., and was elected a fellow of St. Peter's College. He proceeded M.A. in 1802, and having been admitted a student of Lincoln‘s Inn on 19 Nov. 1801, was called to the bar on 23 Nov. 1804. He joined the home circuit, and also practised as an equity draftsman and conveyancer. Though his advancement at the equity bar was slow, he became eventually the leading tithe lawyer of the day. In 1807 he became recorder of Canterbury, and was subsequently appointed recorder of Sandwich, Hythe, New Romney,and Deal, also high steward of Fordwich. He was made a king's counsel in Trinity term 1831, was raised to the bench of his inn on 27 May in the same year, and held the office of treasurer during the year 1843–4. On 16 Dec. 1844 he was appointed senior commissioner of the district court of bankruptcy at Leeds. He died on 29 Oct. 1845 from the effects of an operation necessitated by the injuries which he had received three days before in a railway accident at Masborough. He married, on 29 Nov. 1808, of Charlotte, daughter of James Leigh Joynes, of Mount Pleasant, near Gravesend, by whom he had three sons and six daughters.

[Law Review (18456), iii. 327–34; Gent. Mag. new ser. xxiv. 641–2; Annual Register (1845), pp. 161–2, 307–8.]