Born and educated in Edinburgh, Henry Brougham was one of the most brilliant and forceful personalities of his age. A precociously talented physicist, he received a Fellowship of the Royal Society when only twenty-five. However, it was as a barrister that he made his reputation by successfully using the principle of free speech to defend two newspaper publishers against charges of seditious libel.

A co-founder of the liberal Edinburgh Review, he went on to become a successful journalist. He then turned to politics, leading, with William Wilberforce, the campaign against the slave trade. Whereas Wilberforce represented the Evangelical'saints', inspired by their religious beliefs, Brougham led the Whig abolitionists, motivated by Enlightenment principles of humanity and universal benevolence. In 1831, Brougham became Lord Chancellor and championed the reform of the English political and legal system. Although he later transferred his loyalties to the Tories, legal reform remained his main preoccupation for the rest of his life.