Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Legge, Heneage
LEGGE, HENEAGE (1704–1759), judge, second son of William, first earl of Dartmouth [q. v.], by Lady Anne Finch, third daughter of Heneage Finch, first earl of Aylesford [q. v.], born in March 1703–4, was admitted a member of the Inner Temple in 1723, and called to the bar in 1728. On 12 Dec. 1734 he was appointed steward of Lichfield, in February 1739–40 he took silk, and the same year was elected a bencher of his inn; in 1743 he was appointed counsel to the admiralty and auditor of Greenwich Hospital. In June 1747 Legge was raised to the exchequer bench, in succession to Sir James Reynolds [q. v.] At the Oxford assizes in March 1752 he tried the case of the parricide, Mary Blandy [q. v.] Legge's charge to the jury and his treatment of the prisoner afford a favourable impression of his ability, impartiality, and humanity. In the conference of the judges on the Habeas Corpus Extension Bill of 1758 Legge opposed the measure. He died on 30 Aug. 1759. Legge married in 1740 Catherine, daughter of Jonathan Fogg, merchant, of London; she died on 25 Nov. 1759. By her Legge had issue a son, Heneage, who resided at Idlicote, Warwickshire, and married in 1768 Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Philip Musgrave of Edenhall, bart., and two daughters: Catherine, married to Charles Chester, brother to William, first lord Bagot; and Ann, who died unmarried in 1752.
[Collins's Peerage (Brydges), iv. 121; Inner Temple Books; Harwood's Lichfield, p. 438; Hist. MSS. Comm. 11th Rep. App. pt. v. 329; Howell's State Trials, xviii. 290 et seq., 1118 et seq.; Walpole's Memoirs of the Reign of George II, ed. Lord Holland, iii. 118; Gent. Mag. 1759, pp. 442, 497; Hasted's Kent, ed. Drake, pt. i., 'Hundred of Blackheath,' Dartmouth Pedigree facing p. 244.]