Paul Dudley (jurist)

Paul Dudley FRS (September 3, 1675 – January 25, 1751), Attorney-General of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, was the son of colonial governor Joseph Dudley and grandson of one of the colony's founders, Thomas Dudley.[1]

Paul Dudley
Chief Justice of the Massachusetts Superior Court of Judicature
In office 1745–1751
Appointed by	William Shirley
Preceded by	Benjamin Lynde Sr.
Succeeded by	Stephen Sewall
Associate Justice of the Massachusetts Superior Court of Judicature
In office 1718–1745
Appointed by	Samuel Shute
Preceded by	Samuel Sewall
Succeeded by	Nathaniel Hubbard
1st Attorney General of Massachusetts
In office 1702–1718
Governor	Joseph Dudley William Tailer Samuel Shute
Preceded by	Office established
Succeeded by	John Valentine
Personal details
Born	(1675-09-03)September 3, 1675 Roxbury, Massachusetts Bay Colony, British America
Died	January 25, 1751(1751-01-25) (aged 75) Roxbury, Massachusetts Bay Colony, British America
Education	Harvard University
Signature

Dudley was born in Roxbury, Massachusetts in 1675.[1] After graduating from the Roxbury Latin School and then, at the age of 15, from Harvard in 1690, he studied law at the Temple in London, and became Attorney General of Massachusetts from 1702 to 1718. He was associate justice of the province's highest court, the Superior Court of Judicature, from 1718 to 1745, and chief justice from 1745 until his death in January 1751.

He was a member of the Royal Society, to whose Transactions he contributed several valuable papers on the natural history of New England, as well as the founder of the Dudleian lectures on religion at Harvard University. Dudley was an investor in the Equivalent Lands.[2] Along with his brother, William, he was the first proprietor and namesake of Dudley, Massachusetts. In 1705, Dudley was recorded as owning an enslaved boy, and he acquired another slave in 1745 named Guinea.[3]

Dudley died in Roxbury, and is buried in the Eliot Burying Ground next to his father and grandfather.