John Reeves

John Reeves (20 November 1752 – 7 August 1829) was a legal historian, civil servant, British magistrate, conservative activist, and the first Chief Justice of Newfoundland. In 1792 he founded the Association for Preserving Liberty and Property against Republicans and Levellers, for the purpose suppressing the "seditious publications" authored by British supporters of the French Revolution—most famously, Thomas Paine's Rights of Man. Because of his counter-revolutionary actions he was regarded by many of his contemporaries as "the saviour of the British state"; in the years after his death, he was warmly remembered as the saviour of ultra-Toryism.

Life

Reeves was educated at Eton College and Merton College, Oxford, being elected in 1778 as a Fellow of The Queen's College, Oxford. In 1779 he was called to the bar and held the public offices counsel to the Royal Mint; law clerk to the Board of Trade; and superintendent of Aliens. Following the Gordon Riots of 1780, he drafted London and Westminster Police Bill 1785 at the request of Home Secretary Lord Sydney, which was defeated in British Parliament as too oppressive and resembling French police of the time, but passed in Ireland despite the opposition of local Whigs as the Dublin Police Act 1786, founding the first modern police force on the British Isles and providing inspiration for Robert Peel when he established later police forces in the UK).

He also served two terms as Chief Justice of Newfoundland (in 1791 and 1792) until returning to England to accept the post of Receiver of Public Offices—paymaster to the stipendiary magistrates that had been created under the Middlesex Justices Act 1792 (32 Geo. 3. c. 53). He was also elected as a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries in 1789 and the next year was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. In 1793 he was appointed as high steward of the Manor and Liberty of Savoy and the King's Printer in 1800.