Inn. After presiding as vice-chancellor of England for nearly five years, he was promoted to the post of master of the rolls, in succession to Sir William Grant, on 7 Jan. 1818 (London Gazette, 1818, i. 77). He died at the Rolls House in Chancery Lane on 24 March 1824, aged 70, and was buried in the Rolls Chapel on 1 April following.
Plumer was an able pleader, a learned lawyer, but a heavy and prolix speaker. He was for several years one of the leaders on the Oxford circuit, and he had a large practice in the court of exchequer. He was a great authority on tithe questions, and he was ‘perhaps better acquainted with the law as applied to elections than any other person in the kingdom’ (Wilson, Biogr. Index to the House of Commons, 1808, p. 193). He does not appear to have taken any part in the numerous prosecutions instituted by Sir Vicary Gibbs while attorney-general, except in the ‘Independent Whig’ case, when he addressed the House of Lords in support of the sentence pronounced by the king's bench against Hart and White (Howell, State Trials, xxx. 1337–46). As a judge he was distinguished by the courtesy of his demeanour and the length of his judgments. ‘Plumer,’ says Romilly, ‘has great anxiety to do the duties of his office to the satisfaction of every one, and most beneficially for the suitors; but they are duties which he is wholly incapable of discharging’ (Memoirs of Sir Samuel Romilly, iii. 325). His judgments, ‘though sneered at by some old chancery practitioners when they were delivered, are now,’ says Campbell, ‘read by the student with much profit, and are considered of high authority’ (Lives of the Lord Chancellors, 1857, ix. 357–8). They are to be found for the most part in the ‘Reports’ of Maddock, George Cooper, John Wilson, Swanston, Jacob and Walker, Jacob and Turner, and Russell.
Plumer for some years held the post of king's serjeant in the duchy of Lancaster. He was a trustee of the British Museum, and a fellow of the Royal Society and of the Society of Antiquaries. He served as treasurer of Lincoln's Inn in 1800.
A portrait of Plumer, by Sir Thomas Lawrence, is in the possession of Mrs. Hall Plumer, the widow of a grandson. It has been engraved by H. Robinson.
Two of Plumer's speeches were printed: one on behalf of the directors against Fox's East India Bill in ‘The Case of the East India Company as stated and proved at the Bar of the House of Lords on the 15 and 16 Days of December, 1783,’ London, 1784, 8vo, and the other delivered in 1807 at the bar of the House of Lords in support of the petition of the West India planters and merchants against the second reading of the bill for the abolition of the slave trade, London, 1807, 8vo.
Plumer married, on 27 Aug. 1794, Marianne, eldest daughter of John Turton of Sugnall, near Eccleshall, Staffordshire, by whom he had five sons and two daughters. His widow died on 26 Nov. 1857 at Canons in the parish of Stanmore Parva, Middlesex, an estate which Plumer had purchased in 1811. One of his granddaughters became the wife of Sir Harry Smith Parkes [q. v.]
[Foss's Judges of England, 1864, ix. 32–6; Jerdan's National Portrait Gallery, 1830–4, vol. iii.; Walpole's Life of Spencer Perceval, 1874, i. 202–6; Twiss's Life of Lord Eldon, 1844, ii. 23–8, 240–3, 301; John Bell's Thoughts on the Proposed Alteration in the Court of Chancery, 1830, pp. 3–5; Shaw's History of Staffordshire, 1798, i. 133; Georgian Era, 1833, ii. 545–6; Law and Lawyers, 1840, ii. 84–5; Gent. Mag. 1794 pt. ii. p. 766, 1824 pt. i. p. 640, 1858 pt. i. p. 114; Ann. Reg. 1824, appendix to Chron. p. 217; Foster's Alumni Oxon. 1715–1886, iii. 1123; Lincoln's Inn Registers; Notes and Queries, 2nd ser. xii. 87, 214–15; Official Return of Lists of Members of Parliament, pt. ii. pp. 250, 266; Haydn's Book of Dignities, 1890; Brit. Mus. Cat.]
PLUMPTON, Sir WILLIAM (1404–1480), soldier, born 7 Oct. 1404, was eldest son of Sir Robert Plumpton (1383–1421) of Plumpton, Yorkshire, by Alice, daughter of Sir Godfrey Foljambe of Hassop, Derbyshire. His family had been settled at Plumpton from the twelfth century, and held of the earls of Northumberland as overlords. Accordingly the Earl of Northumberland had his wardship till he was of age. About 1427 he set out for the French wars; he was knighted before 1430, when he returned. He probably went to France again very shortly, as he is mentioned as one of the captains in the retinue of the Duke of Bedford in 1435. He was seneschal and master-forester of the honour and forest, and constable of the castle of Knaresborough from about 1439 to 1461, and in connection with this office he had serious trouble in 1441, when a fierce and sanguinary quarrel broke out between the tenants of the forest and the servants of Archbishop John Kemp [q. v.] as to payment of toll at fairs. On 20 Feb. 1441–2 he was appointed by the Earl of Northumberland seneschal of all his manors in Yorkshire with a fee of 10l. for life; the fee was doubled for good service in 1447. In 1448 he was sheriff for Yorkshire, and in 1452 for Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire. He continued closely connected with
