Jonathan Raine

Jonathan Raine (1763–1831) was an English barrister, judge and politician.^[1]

Portrait of Jonathan Raine by John Hoppner (1790)

Early life

He was the son of Matthew Raine, a cleric and schoolmaster, and younger brother of Matthew Raine FRS.^[2] He was educated at Eton College, where he was a friend of Richard Porson,^[3] and matriculated in 1783 at Trinity College, Cambridge, graduating B.A. in 1787, and M.A. in 1790; he became a Fellow of Trinity in 1789. Admitted to Lincoln's Inn in 1785, he was called to the bar in 1791.^[1]

From 1793 for a decade, Raine was a London criminal lawyer at the Old Bailey.^[4] He also became known as a special pleader, went the Northern Circuit, and gained a reputation for Latin verse.^[5]

Associations

Raine was one of the circle of William Frend, being present on the occasion of the noted tea party with William Wordsworth on 27 February 1795.^[6][7] In 1800 Matthew and Jonathan Raine were executors for John Warner, the radical Whig cleric and scholar.^[8]

Politician, lawyer and judge

Hugh Percy, 2nd Duke of Northumberland met Raine through his legal work on the Northumberland estate, and supported him as a parliamentary candidate for St Ives in 1802.^[5] At this point John Hammond, a Unitarian academic friend of Frend, hoped that Raine would prove a reformer of the "augean stable".^[9] He went on to be MP for Wareham 1806–7, for Launceston in 1812, and for Newport (Cornwall), 1812 to 1831.^[1]

In 1816 Raine became King's Counsel.^[1] In 1818 his seat at Newport, while "owned" by the 3rd Duke of Northumberland, was actually contested by candidates put up by Thomas John Phillipps, who also had property there.^[10][11] In 1823 he was appointed First Justice for the Counties of Anglesey, Carnarvon and Merioneth, a position abolished in 1830.^[1] As a Welsh judge, he stood down for Newport in order to contest the seat again: he was re-elected at the by-election, after Rowland Stephenson opposed him.^[12] He voted against the Great Reform Bill, which would abolish the Newport constituency.^[13][14]

Family

Raine married Elizabeth Price on 24 June 1799 in Kensington.^[15]

Notes

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1. "Raine, Jonathan (RN782J)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
2. Lee, Sidney, ed. (1896). "Raine, Matthew" . Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 47. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
3. John S. Watson (1861). The life of Richard Porson, professor of Greek in the university of Cambridge from 1792 to 1808: (Mit Porfon's Porträt.). Longman, Green, Longman, and Roberts. p. 429.
4. Allyson Nancy May (2003). The Bar and the Old Bailey, 1750-1850. UNC Press Books. p. 44. ISBN 978-0-8078-2806-9.
5. "Raine, Jonathan (1763-1831), of Lincoln's Inn and 33 Bedford Row, Mdx., History of Parliament Online". Retrieved 1 April 2015.
6. John Worthen (28 January 2014). The Life of William Wordsworth: A Critical Biography. Wiley. p. 118. ISBN 978-1-118-60492-2.
7. Johnston, Kenneth R. (1986). "Philanthropy or Treason? Wordsworth as "Active Partisan"". Studies in Romanticism. 25 (3): 371–409. doi:10.2307/25600609. JSTOR 25600609.
8. Eight Friends of the Great
9. Knight, Frida (1971). University Rebel: The Life of William Frend 1757–1841. London: Victor Gollancz Ltd. p. 234. ISBN 0575006331.
10. "Newport 1790–1820, History of Parliament Online". Retrieved 3 April 2015.
11. Thomas Hinton Burley Oldfield (1820). A Key to the House of Commons. Being a history of the last general election in 1818 ... to which is added, an abstract of the state of representation in Scotland and Ireland. p. 21.
12. "Stephenson, Rowland (1782-1856), of Marshalls, nr. Romford, Essex, History of Parliament Online". Retrieved 3 April 2015.
13. "Newport 1820–1832, History of Parliament Online". Retrieved 1 April 2015.
14. The Annual biography and obituary. 1832. p. 464.
15. "Miscellanea Genealogica et Heraldica". 1881. p. 257. Retrieved 3 April 2015.