Samuel Heywood

Who was Samuel Heywood?

Samuel Heywood was a Serjeant-at-law and a Chief Justice of the Carmarthen Circuit of Wales.

Heywood was born in Liverpool, Lancashire to Benjamin and Phoebe Heywood, née Ogden. He was educated at Warrington Academy, and Trinity Hall, Cambridge, though as a Unitarian did not attend college chapel, and could not graduate as he would not subscribe to the Church of England's 39 Articles. He studied law at the Inner Temple, rising to prominence as a lawyer and barrister. He was called to the Bar in 1778. Based at Lancaster, Lancashire, he was appointed Serjeant-at-Law and also Chief Justice of the Carmarthen Circuit of Wales. He was one of very few religious dissenters holding a national public office at this time. He was a fierce opponent of the high church aspects of Anglicanism.