The first Judge of the Commercial Court was Sir James Charles Mathew, who had been the most outstandingly successful commercial barrister of his day, and was one of the greatest of all commercial and common law trial Judges.

More than one hundred other Judges of the King’s Bench Division of the High Court of Justice (and one from the Family Division) have followed Mathew as nominated Judges of the Commercial Court since he heard the first Commercial Court summonses, in Room 99 at the Royal Courts of Justice, at 10.30 in the morning on Friday 1st March 1895. The roster of the Commercial Bench includes virtually all of the principal common law Judges of England & Wales since 1895, among them such giant judicial figures as Lord Sumner, Sir Thomas Edward Scrutton, Lord Atkin, Lord Wright, Lord Devlin, Lord Diplock, Lord Goff, and Lord Bingham. More than sixty Commercial Judges have been elevated to the Court of Appeal, and the Commercial Court Bench has produced twenty-six Law Lords, seven Justices of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom (including one President of the Court), seven Chief Justices of England & Wales (the first Lady Chief Justice among them), seven Masters of the Rolls, three Presidents of the Probate, Divorce & Admiralty/Family Division, one Chancellor of the High Court, and one Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain.

“Commercial Court”: Sir James Charles Mathew.

Brief biographies of Commercial Judges since 1895

A (tentative) list of all Commercial Judges since 1895