Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Impey, John

by James Tait

IMPEY, JOHN (d. 1829), legal writer, was for over sixty years a member of the Inner Temple, although he practised as an attorney at 3 Inner Temple Lane, and was for many years, until 1813, one of the attorneys of the sheriff's court of London and Middlesex. John Thelwall [q. v.], the lecturer, spent three and a half years of his unsettled youth in his office, and acknowledged that Impey's 'only fault was swearing.' During the last three years of his life Impey lived in retirement at Hammersmith, where he died 14 May 1829. One W. J. Impey, who published 'Questions on the Practice of the Courts of King's Bench and Common Pleas,' may have been a son.

Impey's books contain the first systematic account of the practice of the two great common law courts, and he stood high as an authority on this subject even with the bench (Letter of Impey, 1797, Brit. Mus. Add. MS. 21507, fol. 311). He published:

1. 'The New Instructor Clericalis, stating the Authority, Jurisdiction, and Practice of the Court of King's Bench,' London, 1782, 8vo; it reached a tenth edition in the author's lifetime (1823).
2. 'The New Instructor Clericalis, stating the Authority, Jurisdiction, and Practice of the Court of Common Pleas,' London, 1784, 8vo; a seventh edition was published in 1826.
3. 'The Practice of the Office of Sheriff,' London, 1786, 8vo, dedicated to Lord Ellenborough. To which was added in the second edition (1800) 'The Practice of the Office of Coroner' (5th edit. 1822).
4. 'The Modern Pleader,'London, 1794, 8vo.

[Prefatory Memoir to John Thelwall's Fairy of the Lake, Hereford, 1801; Life of John Thelwall, by his widow, 1837; Thomas Lee's Dict. of Practice in Courts of King's Bench and Common Pleas (Pref. v.), 1825; Clarke's New Law List, 1803-28; Gent. Mag. 1829, pt. ii. p. 282.]

J. T-t.