Brougham, Henry Peter, 1st Baron Brougham and Vaux [key], 1778–1868, British statesman, b. Edinburgh. As a young lawyer in Scotland he helped to found (1802) the Edinburgh Review and contributed many articles to it. He went to London, was called (1808) to the English bar, and entered (1810) Parliament as a Whig. Brougham took up the fight against the slave trade and opposed the restrictions on trade with the Continent. In 1820 he won popular renown as chief attorney to Queen Caroline (see Caroline of Brunswick), and in the next decade he became a liberal leader in the House of Commons. He not only proposed educational reforms in Parliament, but also was one of the founders of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge (1825) and of the Univ. of London (1828). As lord chancellor (1830–34) he effected many legal reforms to speed procedure and established the central criminal court. In later years he spent much of his time in Cannes, which he established as a popular resort.
See A. Aspinall, Lord Brougham and the Whig Party (1927, repr. 1972).
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