DCB/DBC Mobile beta
+

As part of the funding agreement between the Dictionary of Canadian Biography and the Canadian Museum of History, we invite readers to take part in a short survey.

I’ll take the survey now.

Remind me later.

Don’t show me this message again.

I have already taken the questionnaire

DCB/DBC News

New Biographies

Minor Corrections

Biography of the Day

ROBINSON, ELIZA ARDEN – Volume XIII (1901-1910)

d. in Victoria 19 March 1906

Confederation

Responsible Government

Sir John A. Macdonald

From the Red River Settlement to Manitoba (1812–70)

Sir Wilfrid Laurier

Sir George-Étienne Cartier

Sports

The Fenians

Women in the DCB/DBC

The Charlottetown and Quebec Conferences of 1864

Introductory Essays of the DCB/DBC

The Acadians

For Educators

The War of 1812 

Canada’s Wartime Prime Ministers

The First World War

ESTEN, JAMES CHRISTIE PALMER, lawyer and judge; b. 7 Nov. 1805 at St George, Bermuda, the son of James Christie Esten, chief justice of Bermuda, and Ester Palmer; m. in 1832 at Exeter, England, Ann Frederica Hutchison, and they had several children; d. 24 Oct. 1864 at Toronto, Canada West.

James Christie Palmer Esten’s childhood was spent in Bermuda and Virginia. He was sent to England to be educated at the Charterhouse School, London, and then entered Lincoln’s Inn. He was called to the bar, and practised in London and at Exeter, becoming an expert in conveyancing and other aspects of land law.

In 1836 Esten immigrated to Upper Canada to pursue a career in retail merchandising. But when, in March of the following year, the Court of Chancery was established for the province, Esten had the opportunity of renewing his career as an equity lawyer, and with a reasonable expectation of success, since few lawyers in Upper Canada were expert in equity law. He was admitted as a barrister in 1838, and until 1849 enjoyed a growing practice.

In 1843 the Robert Baldwin*–Louis-Hippolyte La Fontaine ministry established a commission to investigate the Court of Chancery in the hope of simplifying its practice and reducing costs to suitors. Among those appointed to the commission were three prominent equity lawyers – Robert Easton Burns, William Hume Blake, and Esten. The report of the commissioners was presented to the government in 1845; many of its recommendations were implemented in 1849. The major revision, however, the enlargement of the court from one to three judges, was not among the 1845 recommendations. William Blake, Baldwin’s solicitor general, became the chancellor, and Esten a vice-chancellor; Robert Sympson Jameson* remained a vice-chancellor. Esten sat as a judge in equity from the fall of 1849 until his death in 1864. Along with Blake, he was instrumental in further simplifying the operations of the court, and in promulgating new orders in May 1850. When Jameson retired late in 1850, the master in chancery, John Godfrey Spragge*, was appointed a vice-chancellor. Over the next decade he, Blake, and Esten largely settled the practice of the court.

Esten wrote the decisions in many of the cases before the Chancery Court, particularly those which dealt with the rights of parties to mortgages. He died at Toronto in 1864, a respected member of the legal profession and of the Chancery bench.

Robert Hett

Can., Prov. of, Legislative Assembly, Journals, 1844–45, 2, app.J.J.; 1850, app.O. Globe, 26 Oct. 1864. Journal of Education for U.C., XVII (1864), 171. Reports of cases adjudged in the Court of Chancery of Upper Canada . . . , comp. Alexander Grant (29v., Toronto, 18583), I–II. Upper Canada Law Journal (Toronto), X (1864), 281. Read, Lives of judges. W. R. Ridden, The bar and the courts of the province of Upper Canada, or Ontario (Toronto, 1928). H. C. Wilkinson, Bermuda from sail to steam; the history of the island from 1784 to 1901 (2v., London, 1973).

General Bibliography

Cite This Article

Robert Hett, “ESTEN, JAMES CHRISTIE PALMER,” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 9, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–, accessed March 19, 2024, http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/esten_james_christie_palmer_9E.html.

The citation above shows the format for footnotes and endnotes according to the Chicago manual of style (16th edition). Information to be used in other citation formats:


Permalink:   http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/esten_james_christie_palmer_9E.html
Author of Article:   Robert Hett
Title of Article:   ESTEN, JAMES CHRISTIE PALMER
Publication Name:   Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 9
Publisher:   University of Toronto/Université Laval
Year of publication:   1976
Year of revision:   1976
Access Date:   March 19, 2024