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Sir Samuel Romilly (1 March 1757 – 2 November 1818) was a British lawyer, Whig politician, abolitionist and legal reformer. Born in London of French Huguenot descent, he was largely self-educated and escaped poverty through a fortuitous inheritance that allowed travel. From a background in the commercial world, Romilly became well-connected, and rose to public office as Solicitor-General for England and Wales (1806–1807) and a prominent position in Parliament, where he sat for Horsham (1807–1808), Wareham (1808–1812), Arundel (1812–1818), and finally Westminster (July 1818 until his death).
After an early interest in radical politics, he built a career in chancery cases, and then turned to reform of British criminal law and abolition of the slave trade. The grandson of refugees, he became known as a "friend of the oppressed". Yet few of his ambitions were achieved during his lifetime, which was cut short in 1818, when, despondent after the death of his wife, he died by suicide, leaving criminal law "in the same state as he had found it when he embarked upon his work of amelioration". He was an early campaigner against the death penalty, which was partially realised on the bicentennial of his birth with the Homicide Act 1957.
His eldest son, John, was Attorney General for England and Wales and was ennobled as Baron Romilly in 1866. Three other sons, Frederick Romilly, Edward Romilly, and Charles Romilly, were first-class cricketers.
His paternal grandfather, Étienne (Stephen) Romilly, emigrated from Montpellier to Hoxton in 1701 via Geneva. He married Judith de Montsallier. Étienne's father, who owned a large estate in Montpellier, helped him financially, and he set up a firm in Hoxton as a candle making and was able to comfortably support his large family and business interests. However, when his father died in France, a Catholic relative inherited the estate and slashed his income to a paltry amount, and ultimately he was left bankrupt, unable to cover his expenses. Remembered for his generosity and his piety, Étienne died in 1733, aged 49, "of a broken heart" according to Samuel's memoirs. He left a widow and eight children, the youngest of whom died within a few months and was buried in his father's grave. Samuel's father, Pierre, was the youngest surviving child.
His mother was in poor health, and Samuel and his siblings were largely raised by a maternal relative, Margaret Facquier, who educated the children mainly with the Bible, the 18th-century moralist periodical The Spectator, and an English translation of François Fénelon's Les Aventures de Télémaque. For a while he attended a school run by a Mr. Flack, which he hated, and his formal education ended at age 14.
Every Sunday, his family attended the French Protestant Chapel in Soho, where his future brother-in-law, John (Jean) Roget from Geneva, was pastor. (Roget and Samuel's sister Catherine were the parents of Peter Mark Roget). Roget introduced Romilly to the works of Jean Jacques Rousseau, and he became a follower. Self-taught from then on, Romilly became a good classical scholar and was conversant with French literature.
Romilly's first cousin once removed Sir Samuel Fludyer, 1st Baronet, M.P., was his godfather and namesake, and he had prospects for entering Fludyer's successful wool business. He had a clerkship learning bookkeeping, but Sir Samuel died in 1768, followed by his brother and partner, Sir Thomas Fludyer, in 1769, and the opportunity fell away.
However, good fortune entered his life in a generous benefactor, his great-uncle Philip Delahaize (or de la Haize; brother of his grandmother Marguerite Alavoine Garnault). Delahaize also died in 1769, when Samuel was 12 years old. Delahaize "was a gentleman of great wealth and benevolence, and by his judicious bequests to his circle of relations he set a number of refugee families upon their feet in a nation in which their ancestors had retired to voluntary poverty." He left £2,000 () each to Samuel and his brother, and £3,000 each () to his parents and sister.
Romilly was articled in 1773 to William Michael Lally, a solicitor who worked in the Six Clerks office of the Court of Chancery. However, after five years, when it became possible for Romilly to purchase a post there, he turned down the opportunity.
A friend from the Paris leg of this visit was Marguerite Madeleine Delessert, later Madame Gautier. Her mother was Madeleine Catherine Boy de La Tour, who married Etienne Delessert. Marguerite became the wife of the Genevan banker Jean-Antoine Gautier, who moved to Paris. Romilly stayed at the Delessert home in Passy.
In the meantime, the failed Geneva Revolution of 1782 had occurred. Romilly was introduced in 1784 to Honoré Mirabeau, by the Genevan writer François d'Ivernois, as his Memoirs state; Halevy says it was through Thomas Brand Hollis. D'Ivernois and Dumont formed part of the group of the revolution's leaders who by then were exiles in London. Mirabeau saw him daily for a long time.
In what has been called the Bowood circle, Jeremy Bentham, with whom Romilly was acquainted, became a friend, and he had much to do with Benjamin Vaughan, another friend.
Romilly's abilities were recognized by the Whig party. The Marquess of Lansdowne offered him in 1792 the parliamentary seat of Calne, which Romilly turned down. In July 1793 he defended Birmingham booksellers who had sold Tom Paine's works, despite thinking Paine was lacking in arguments; and in August of that year attended the sedition trial of Thomas Muir, which he regarded as shocking.
By the end of 1793, Romilly had concluded that French revolutionary politics amounted to "barbarism". He explained in 1794 to his correspondent Madame Gautier that "public events" had brought about his change of views. In August 1797 he secured the acquittal of the radical John Binns for treason.
During the 1802 Peace of Amiens, Romilly was in Paris. He visited the Palais Bourbon, where the Legislative Assembly met, with Bentham.
During the parliamentary debate on the Slave Trade Bill, Romilly paid tribute to Wilberforce, saying that his leadership had "preserved so many millions of his fellow creatures." As he concluded his remarks, Romilly was greeted with a standing ovation by other Members of Parliament, a reaction that very rarely occurred in the House of Commons. Wilberforce himself sat with his head in his hands, tears streaming down his face.
In 1808, Romilly managed to repeal the Elizabethan statute which made it a capital offence to steal from the person. Successful prosecutions of then rose. Charles Williams-Wynn, on the other hand, saw Romilly's background in equity law, and discrete bills, as inadequate.
In 1809, three bills for repealing draconian statutes were thrown out by the House of Lords under the influence of Lord Ellenborough. Romilly saw further bills rejected; but in March 1812 he had repealed a statute of Elizabeth I making it a capital offence for a soldier or a mariner to beg without a pass from a magistrate or his commanding officer.
In 1813, John William Ward found the approach too "philosophical". Romilly failed to pass a law which would have abolished corruption of blood for all crimes, but in the following year he tried again and succeeded, with the exception of treason and murder. Also in 1814, he succeeded in abolishing hanging, drawing and quartering.
Seeing a connection, Romilly also advocated prison reform in 1811. Here, however, reform in the direction proposed by Jeremy Bentham was thwarted.
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