Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Carrington, Codrington Edmund
CARRINGTON, Sir CODRINGTON EDMUND (1769–1849), chief justice of Ceylon, was descended from an old Norman family, one of whom, Sir Michel de Carrington, was standard-bearer to Richard Cœur-de-Lion. The family at an early period settled at Carrington in Cheshire, but a branch afterwards emigrated to Barbadoes. Codrington was the son of Codrington Carrington, of the Blackmoor estate in that island, and the eldest daughter of the Rev. Edmund Morris, rector of Nutshalling, the friend of Lady Hervey, and was born at Longwood, Hampshire, on 22 Oct. 1769. He was educated at Winchester school and called to the bar at the Middle Temple on 10 Feb. 1792. In the same year he went to India, where, being admitted an advocate of the supreme court of judicature, he for some time acted at Calcutta as junior counsel to the East India Company, and made the acquaintance of Sir William Jones. He returned on account of his health in 1799, and in 1800, while in England, he was called upon to prepare the code of laws for the island of Ceylon, and shortly afterwards was appointed the first chief justice of the supreme court of judicature thereby created, the honour of knighthood having been conferred on him before he embarked on his outward voyage. In 1806 he was compelled from ill-health to resign his office, and for the same reason had to decline other important colonial appointments. Having purchased an estate in Buckinghamshire, he became a magistrate and deputy-lieutenant of that county, where he acted for many years as chairman of the quarter sessions. He was created D.C.L. and elected F.R.S., F.S.A., and honorary member of the Société Française Statistique Universelle. On the occasion of the Manchester riots he published in 1819 an ‘ Inquiry into the Law relative to Public Assemblies of the People,’ and he was also the author of a ‘Letter to the Marquis of Buckingham on the Condition of Prisons,’ 1819, and other smaller pamphlets. In June 1826 he was elected tory M.P. for St. Mawes, which he continued to represent till 1831. During his last years he resided chiefly at St. Helier's, Jersey. He died at Exmouth on 28 Nov. 1849.
[Annual Register for 1850 (xc.), pp. 196–7; information from the family; Gent. Mag. 1850, ii. 92–3; Brit. Mus. Catalogue.]
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.56
N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
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