Joseph Yates

Sir Joseph Yates (1722 – June 7, 1770) of Peel Hall, Little Hulton, Lancashire was an eminent English judge. Biography He was born in Manchester, the son of Joseph Yates, barrister, of Stanley House, Lancashire and educated at Manchester Grammar School and The Queen's College, Oxford. He studied law at Staple Inn and the Inner Temple and was called to the bar in 1753. In 1761 he was appointed King's Council for the Duchy of Lancaster. He was knighted in 1763 and appointed early the following year to the King's Bench, in the same year becoming the Chancellor of Durham. During his time on the King's Bench he adjudicated at the famous trial of John Wilkes who was charged with sedition and obscenity, sentencing him to two years in jail. He later transferred, in 1770, from the King's bench to the Court of Common Pleas, holding the latter appointment little more than a month before he died.