David Jardine was an English barrister and magistrate, known as a historical and legal writer.

Life

Born at Pickwick

Pickwick

Pickwick may refer to:*The Pickwick Papers, a novel by Charles Dickens, or its main character, Mr Pickwick**The Pickwick Papers , a british 1952-film**The Pickwick Papers ....

, near Bath, Somerset, he was son of David B. Jardine (1766–1797), Unitarian minister at Bath from 1790, by his wife, a daughter of George Webster of Hampstead

Hampstead

Hampstead is an area of London, England, north-west of Charing Cross. Part of the London Borough of Camden in Inner London, it is known for its intellectual, liberal, artistic, musical and literary associations and for Hampstead Heath, a large, hilly expanse of parkland...

. The father died on 10 March 1797, and John Prior Estlin

John Prior Estlin

John Prior Estlin was an English Unitarian minister, noted as a teacher and for his connections in literary circles.-Life:He was born at Hinckley, Leicestershire, 9 April 1747, was the son of Thomas Estlin, hosier, by his wife, née Prior. His education was undertaken by his mother's brother, the...

 of Bristol

Bristol

Bristol is a city, unitary authority area and ceremonial county in South West England, with an estimated population of 433,100 for the unitary authority in 2009, and a surrounding Larger Urban Zone with an estimated 1,070,000 residents in 2007...

 edited, with a memoir, two volumes of his sermons.

David Jardine graduated M.A. at Glasgow University in 1813, was called to the bar as a member of the Middle Temple

Middle Temple

The Honourable Society of the Middle Temple, commonly known as Middle Temple, is one of the four Inns of Court exclusively entitled to call their members to the English Bar as barristers; the others being the Inner Temple, Gray's Inn and Lincoln's Inn...

 (7 February 1823), chose the western circuit, and became recorder of Bath. In 1839 he was appointed police magistrate at Bow Street Magistrates' Court

Bow Street Magistrates' Court

Bow Street Magistrates' Court was the most famous magistrates' court in England for much of its existence, and was located in various buildings on Bow Street in central London close to Covent Garden throughout its history.-History:...

, London.

He died at the Heath, Weybridge

Weybridge

Weybridge is a town in the Elmbridge district of Surrey in South East England. It is bounded to the north by the River Thames at the mouth of the River Wey, from which it gets its name...

, Surrey

Surrey

Surrey is a county in the South East of England and is one of the Home Counties. The county borders Greater London, Kent, East Sussex, West Sussex, Hampshire and Berkshire. The historic county town is Guildford. Surrey County Council sits at Kingston upon Thames, although this has been part of...

, on 13 September 1860; his wife, Sarah, died three weeks later.

Works

In 1828 Jardine published a General Index to Thomas Bayly Howell

Thomas Bayly Howell

Thomas Bayly Howell FRS was an English lawyer and writer who edited and lent his name to Howell's State Trials.-Life:Born, in Jamaica, his family returned to England in 1770 to settle at Prinknash Park near Gloucester...

's Collection of State Trials. In 1840 and 1841 he communicated to the Society of Antiquaries of London

Society of Antiquaries of London

The Society of Antiquaries of London is a learned society "charged by its Royal Charter of 1751 with 'the encouragement, advancement and furtherance of the study and knowledge of the antiquities and history of this and other countries'." It is based at Burlington House, Piccadilly, London , and is...

 two papers of ‘Remarks upon the Letters of Thomas Winter and the Lord Mounteagle, lately discovered by J. Bruce. … Also upon the Evidence of Lord Mounteagle's implication in the Gunpowder Treason’. These formed the materials for A Narrative of the Gunpowder Plot, London, 1857.

Jardine also edited from a manuscript in the Bodleian Library

Bodleian Library

The Bodleian Library , the main research library of the University of Oxford, is one of the oldest libraries in Europe, and in Britain is second in size only to the British Library...

 ‘A Treatise of Equivocation,’ 1851, and translated F. C. F. von Mueffling's ‘Narrative of my Missions in 1829 and 1830,’ 1855. For the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge

Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge

The Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge , founded in 1826, and wound up in 1848, was a Whiggish London organisation that published inexpensive texts intended to adapt scientific and similarly high-minded material for the rapidly expanding reading public...

 he selected and abridged from Howell's ‘State Trials of England’ two volumes of ‘Criminal Trials,’ 1832–3 (in Library of Entertaining Knowledge). To the ‘Lives of Eminent Persons,’ in the Library of Useful Knowledge, published by the same society, he contributed a ‘Life’ of Lord Somers. He wrote also:

• ‘A Reading on the use of Torture in the Criminal Law of England previously to the Commonwealth,’ London, 1837;
• ‘Remarks on the Law and Expediency of requiring the presence of Accused Persons at Coroners' Inquisitions,’ London, 1846.