for an inquiry into the expenditure of £100,000 granted by parliament for the outfit of the Prince Regent. Early in February 1816, Leach vacated his seat in the House of Commons by accepting the Chiltern Hundreds, and was immediately afterwards appointed by the Prince Regent as Chancellor of the Duchy of Cornwall. In August 1817 he became chief justice of Chester, in succession to Sir William Garrow. Resigning these posts, he succeeded Sir Thomas Plumer as vice-chancellor of England in January 1818, and having been sworn a member of the Privy Council on 30 December 1817, was knighted in the following month. On John Copley becoming lord chancellor Leach was appointed master of the rolls (3 May 1827), and, by a commission dated 5 May 1827, was made deputy-speaker of the House of Lords. By an act of parliament passed in August 1833 Leach became, by virtue of his office as master of the rolls, a member of the judicial committee of the privy council. He died at Simpson's Hotel in Edinburgh on 14 September 1834, aged 74, and was buried on 20 September 1834, in William Adam's mausoleum in Greyfriars Kirkyard. Assessment Leach's decisions were lucid and brief, but as he often decided on his own judgment in preference to that of his predecessors, they were not infrequently over-ruled. His demeanour on the bench brought him into constant collision with members of the bar. While he was master of the rolls the customary evening sittings of the court were abandoned, and on 22 June 1829 the practice of sitting in the daytime began. Though Leach was professedly a Whig when he entered parliament, he adopted the politics of the Regent, whose confidential adviser he had become. At his instigation the Milan commission was instituted in 1818 to investigate the conduct of the Princess of Wales; he was strongly in favour of a divorce. Some of Leach's equity pleadings, signed 'J. L.,' were printed in F. M. Van Heythuysen's 'Equity Draftsman' (London, 1816, 8vo). His speech of 31 December 1810 on the regency resolutions was published in 1811 (London, 8vo, second edition). He was created D.C.L. by the university of Oxford on 5 July 1810. Family He never married. His nephew, Richard Howell Leach, a son of his youngest brother, Thomas Leach, was the senior chancery registrar from 1868 to 1882. References Attribution External links 1760 births 1834 deaths Members