Edmund Law (6 June 1703 – 14 August 1787) was a churchman in the Church of England. He served as Master of Peterhouse, Cambridge, as Knightbridge Professor of Philosophy in the University of Cambridge from 1764 to 1769, and as bishop of Carlisle from 1768 to 1787.
Contents
Life
Edmund Law was born in the parish of Cartmel, Grange-over-Sands, Lancashire on 6 June 1703, son of Edmund Law, curate of Staveley-in-Cartmel and master of a small school there from 1693 to 1742, and Patience, daughter of Christopher Langbaine, of Kendal, Westmoreland. Per Law's friend and biographer William Paley, the Laws descended from a family of yeomen long settled at Askham in Westmoreland. The senior Edmund Law seems on his marriage to have settled on his wife's property at Buck Crag, about four miles from Staveley. There his only son, Edmund, the future bishop, was born. The boy, educated first at Cartmel school, and afterwards at the free grammar school at Kendal, went to St. John's College, Cambridge. He earned his B.A. in 1723. Soon elected fellow of Christ's College, he proceeded M.A. in 1727. At Cambridge his chief friends were Daniel Waterland, master of Magdalene College, John Jortin, and John Taylor, the editor of Demosthenes.
In 1737, Law was presented with the living of Greystoke in Cumberland, the gift of which at this time devolved on the university, and soon afterwards he married Mary, daughter of John Christian, of Ewanrigg, Cumberland. Her mother Bridget was daughter of John (a.k.a. Humphrey) Senhouse, of a Cumberland landed gentry family with descent from King Edward I. In 1743, he was made archdeacon of Carlisle, and in 1746 he left Greystoke for Great Salkeld, the rectory of which was annexed to the archdeaconry.