Nicholas Conyngham Tindal

Sir Nicolas Conyngham Tindal,

Judge Tindal was born in the Moulsham area of Chelmsford, where 199 Moulsham Street is today, and the site is marked with a commemorative plaque.

Background

Tindal's father, Robert Tindal, was an attorney in Chelmsford, where his family had lived at Coval Hall for three generations. His great-grandfather, Nicolas Tindal, was the translator and continuer of the History of England by Paul de Rapin – a seminal work in its day – and he was also the great-great-grandnephew of Matthew Tindal, the deist and author of Christianity as Old as the Creation (known as the 'deist's bible') and descendant of Thomas Clifford, 1st Baron Clifford of Chudleigh.

Nicholas's branch of the Tindal family were descended from John Tindal, Rector of

Elected Tory Member of Parliament (MP) for the Scottish constituency of Wigtown Burghs from 1824 to 1826; he was MP for Harwich in 1826 before serving as the Member for Cambridge University in 1827. Tindal served as Solicitor General from 1826 to 1829, when he was appointed to the bench.

An example of Tindal's learning can be found in his speech to the House of Commons in 1826 on a motion to allow counsel to the defence to make a closing speech.^[4] Although his conclusion would find little favour today, Tindal demonstrated an appreciation of the role of prosecuting counsel as a minister of justice and the influences of counsel on a jury that would be recognised by any criminal practitioner in the 21st century. Almost as an afterthought, Tindal added a passionate defence of the 'anomalies' of English law that, in his opinion and that of so many others before and since, are its greatest attributes.

At the Bench, Tindal's greatest achievement was to reform significantly the application of the criminal law. By introducing to the common law the special verdict of

He directed the jury in the case of the Bristol riots on the rejection of the reform bill in 1831 with the duties at common law to suppress tumultuary meetings.^[5][6] In the case of Regina v Hale, Tindal ruled that, where a defendant was provoked to such a degree that any reasonable man would lose his self-control and then killed the person responsible for that provocation, the defendant would be guilty only of manslaughter. This judgment has also stood the test of time and is the basis of the common law defence of provocation and was incorporated into section 3 of the Homicide Act 1957.

The significance of these judgments was to remove the spectre of the noose from many vulnerable prisoners in an era of the widespread application of the death penalty; and to reform the law through the greater recognition of the importance of differing states of mind (mens rea) in those accused of the most serious crimes. In the context of the century that produced William Wilberforce, the Earl of Shaftesbury and Benjamin Disraeli, Tindal's reforms to the cruel application of the criminal law deserve to be remembered as social reforms of great importance.

Towards the end of his career, Tindal yet again demonstrated the quality that was to lead to his great popularity amongst the public;

Tindal married Merelina, daughter of Capt. Thomas Symonds, in 1809 and had four children, Vice Admiral Louis Symonds Tindal^[9] (father of composer Adela Maddison^[10]), Rev Nicholas Tindal (Rector of Chelmsford) (whose daughter Adela-Rose-Ellen married Surgeon General Sir James Mouat VC CB^[11]), Charles Tindal and Merelina Tindal (who married James Whatman Bosanquet of Claysmore and amongst whose descendants was the broadcaster Reginald Bosanquet).

He died 6 July 1846 in Folkestone;^[12] is buried at Kensal Green Cemetery in north London,^[13] and is commemorated by a plaque inside Chelmsford Cathedral (alongside memorials to other members of his family). In addition to his statue at Chelmsford, there is a portrait of him by Thomas Phillips, RA (1770–1845) in the Hall at Lincoln's Inn and another in the judges quarters of the Royal Courts of Justice.

Notes

Chelmsford Museum holds a portrait by John Lucas (1807–1874), and portraits of his parents Robert Tindal, by John Jackson (1778–1831) and Sally Tindal, née Pocock (by an unknown artist).

References

• Leigh Rayment's Peerage Pages [
  better source needed
  ]
• Lee, Sidney, ed. (1898). "Tindal, Nicholas Conyngham" . Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 56. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
• Burke's Landed Gentry, Vol.III, 1973 'Tindal-Carill-Worsley formerly of Platt'
• Burke's Landed Gentry (19th century editions) 'Tindal of Chelmsford'
• Burke's Peerage 'Clifford of Chudleigh'
• Anecdotes of John Nichol, Vol.IX (genealogical reference)
• The Gentleman's Magazine, Vol.XXVI (1846) p. 199
• Coller, DW (1861) 'A People's History of Essex'

External links

Wikiquote has quotations related to Nicholas Conyngham Tindal.

• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Nicholas Conyngham Tindal

Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by John Osborn	Member of Parliament for Wigtown Burghs 1824–1826	Succeeded by John Henry Lowther
Preceded by George Canning John Charles Herries	Member of Parliament for Harwich 1826–1827 With: John Charles Herries	Succeeded by John Charles Herries William Rae
Preceded by Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston John Singleton Copley	Member of Parliament for Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston	Succeeded by Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston William Cavendish
Legal offices
Preceded by Charles Wetherell	Solicitor General for England and Wales 1826–1829	Succeeded by Edward Sugden
Preceded by William Best	Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas 1829–1846	Succeeded by Thomas Wilde