Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Phillimore, John George
PHILLIMORE, JOHN GEORGE (1808–1865), jurist, eldest son of Joseph Phillimore [q. v.], was born on 5 Jan. 1808. He was educated at Westminster School and at Oxford. On 28 May 1824 he matriculated from Christ Church, of which he was faculty student, and graduated B.A. in 1828, having taken a second class in the classical schools; he proceeded M.A. in 1831.
From 1827 to 1832 he held a clerkship in the board of control for India, and on 23 Nov. in the latter year was called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn, where he was elected a bencher in 1851. In 1850 Phillimore was appointed reader in civil law and jurisprudence at the Middle Temple. In 1851 he took silk, and in the following year he was appointed reader in constitutional law and legal history to the Inns of Court. He represented Leominster in the liberal interest in the parliament of 1852–7, and spoke with ability on free trade, law reform, the ballot, and similar topics. He died on 27 April 1865 at his residence, Shiplake House, Oxfordshire. By his wife Rosalind Margaret, younger daughter of Sir James Lewis Knight Bruce [q. v.], he had issue an only son.
Phillimore was a learned jurist and a man of large culture. His writings, all published at London (8vo), are as follows: ‘Letter to the Lord Chancellor on the Reform of the Law,’ 1846. 2. ‘Thoughts on Law Reform,’ 1847. 3. ‘Introduction to the Study and History of the Roman Law,’ 1848. 4. ‘An Inaugural Lecture on Jurisprudence, and a Lecture on Canon Law,’ 1851. 5. ‘Principles and Maxims of Jurisprudence,’ 1856. 6. ‘Influence of the Canon Law’ (in ‘Oxford Essays’), 1858. 7. ‘Private Law among the Romans,’ 1863. 8. ‘History of England during the Reign of George the Third’ (one volume only), 1863.
[Barker and Stenning's Westminster School Register; Welch's Alumni Westmonast.; Foster's Alumni Oxon. and Baronetage; Times, 27 April 1865; Haydn's Book of Dignities, ed. Ockerby; Members of Parliament (Official Lists); Law Times, 6 May 1865; Gent. Mag. 1865, pt. i. p. 802.]