Thomas Denison

Sir Thomas Denison (1699 – 8 September 1765) was a British judge.

Born in Leeds, Denison's father William was a clothier described as "an opulent merchant at Leeds".[1] Denison, the younger of two sons, was educated at the Leeds Grammar School, and entered the Inner Temple in 1718 to receive his legal education; he was thereafter called to the bar.[2]

He was successful as a lawyer, and December 1741,[2] he was appointed to succeed Sir Francis Page on the Court of the King's Bench, taking office on 16 February 1742.[1] He served in that capacity for over twenty-three years, under chief justices, Sir William Lee, Sir Dudley Ryder, and Lord Mansfield, resigning on 14 February 1765 on account of poor health and failing eyesight.[1]

He died in September that year and was buried in Harewood in Yorkshire.[2][1] Per his instruction, Denison was buried next to admired former Chief Justice Gascoigne; a memorial was erected in his honor with an inscription by his closest friend, Lord Mansfield.[2]

Denison had no children. His wife, Anne, daughter of Robert Smithson, Esq., died twenty years later, and his estate passed to his wife's grand-niece, who married Edmund the fifth son of Sir John Beckett, Bart. who then assumed the name of Denison.[1] Denison's grand-nephew, John Evelyn Denison, would become speaker of the House of Commons in the 1800s.