CRESSWELL, Six CRESSWELL (1793-1863), the first judge of the English Divorce Court, was a descendant of an old Northumberland family, and was born in 1793. He was educated at the Charter house and at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, the latter of which he entered in 1810. He graduated B.A. in 1814, and M.A. four years later. Having chosen the profession of the law he studied at the Middle Temple, and was called to the bar in 1819. He joined the northern circuit, and was not long in earning a distinguished position among his professional brethren. In 1837 he entered Parliament as Conservative member for Liverpool, and he soon gained a reputation as an acute and learned debater on all constitutional questions. In January 1842 he took his seat on the bench of the Common Pleas, being knighted at the same time; and this post ho occupied for sixteen years. When the new court for probate, divorces, and matrimonial causes was established (1858), Sir Cresswell Cresswell was requested by the Liberal Government to become its first judge and undertake the arduous task of its organization. Although he had already earned a right to retire, and possessed large private wealth, he accepted this new task, and during the rest of his life devoted himself to it most assiduously and conscientiously, with complete satisfaction to the public. In one case only, out of the very large number on which he pronounced judgment, was his decision reversed. His death was sudden. By a fall from his horse, July 17, 1863, his knee cap was injured. He was recovering from this when on the 29th of the same month he died of disease of tho heart.