Anthony Upton

Anthony Upton (1656-1718) was an English-born judge, much ofwhose career was spent in Ireland.He was a close friend of the poet William King,who lived for atime atMountown, Upton's country housenear Dublin. Uptonwas accused by his criticsof neglecting his official duties, buthe showed a notably enlightened attitude at the Carrickfergus witchcraft trials, where he urged the jury, without success,to acquitallthe accused women.He wasremoved from the Bench in 1714, on account of his political views,andreturned to England,where for unknown reasons he committed suicide in 1718.

He was born atMonken Hadley in Middlesex; little is known of his family. He was educated at Oxford, first at Trinity College and then at All Souls College, from which he graduated in 1674. He entered Lincoln's Inn and was called to the Bar in 1683.

He was appointed a judge of the Court of Common Pleas (Ireland) in 1702. He acquired a comfortable house at Mountown, previously the family home of the noted writerSir Richard Steele,nearpresent-day Monkstown,County Dublin.He wasaccused by his political opponents of spending most of his time at Mountown,to the neglect of his office, in the company ofhis friend, the poet William King. King wrote one ofhis best-known poems,Mully of Mountown (a mock ode to a red cow) while staying with Upton. They shared a taste for poetry anda keenenjoyment of country life. SinceKing wasalso a Crown official, who held several senior positions including Judge Advocate and Commissioner for Prizes, there may be some justice in the criticism that they were bothignoring theirofficial duties. It was said that the pair 'thought of nothing but spending their last years in their rural retreat"; but in the event King returned to England in 1708 and died there in 1712.

Upton,to do him justice,wasnotalone in neglecting his officialduties: his colleague Sir Gilbert Dolben, 1st Baronet,despite his position onthe IrishCourt of Common Pleas refused to vacate his seat in the House of Commons of England and spent part of every year in England.

On at least one occasion Upton showed himselfto be a responsible and humane judge: this was at the Carrickfergus witchcraft trials in 1711. These werethe last witchcrafttrials in Ireland, and are said to have originated in a dispute between two Protestant factions, the accusers being non-confomists while the accused were Anglicans. Eight women- Janet Mean, Janet Latimer, Janet Miller, Margaret Mitchell, Catherine McCalmond, Janet Liston, Elizabeth Seller and Janet Carson- were accused of bewitching ayoung woman called Mary Dunbar.

Upton in his summing-up tothe jury did not say that hedisbelieved in witchcraft- which wasa very advanced view for the time- but rather hedweltonthe good character of the accused. Since witches were expected to renounce churchgoing on giving their allegiance to the Devil, he pointed to the accuseds'regular attendance at church as evidence of their innocence(a similarpointhadbeenfrequently made during the Salem witch trialsof 1692) and referred to their accuserMary Dunbar's evidenceas "visionary imaginings" (another echo of the Salemtrials, where the mental health of the accusers was a crucial issue).He told the jury that they "could not bring the accused in guilty upon such evidence".

Unfortunatelyfor the accused his fellow judge James Macartneyurged the jury to convict, which they duly did. Since witchcraft was in theory a capital crime, the sentence- a year in prison and four sessions in the pillory- may seemrelatively lenient, although it is said that the convicts were treated very roughly by an angry crowd while being pilloried. Upton's enlightened attitude may havehelpedto ensure that there were no further witch trials in Ireland.

On the death of Queen Anne in 1714, her Irish judges were removed en masseand most of them were in temporary disgrace. No permanent damage was done to their reputations, but Upton perhaps felt the disgrace more keenly then the others. Abandoning his beloved home atMountown, he returned to England andresumed his practice at the English Bar, but in 1718, while suffering from what was described as "delirium",he cut his throat.