John Fortescue Aland, 1st Baron Fortescue of Credan.

About John Fortescue Aland, 1st Baron Fortescue of Credan

John Fortescue Aland, 1st Baron Fortescue of Credan was an English lawyer, judge, politician and peer who sat in the British House of Commons from 1715 to 1717. Aland wrote on English legal and constitutional history, and was said to have influenced Thomas Jefferson. A member of both the Middle Temple and Inner Temple, he became a King's Counsel in 1714 and was then appointed Solicitor General, first to the Prince of Wales and then to his father George I in 1715. After a short stint as a member of parliament, Aland was knighted and elevated to the Bench as a Baron of the Exchequer in 1717. He was subsequently a justice of the Court of King's Bench (1718–1727) and of the Court of Common Pleas (1728–1746), save for a brief hiatus between 1727 and 1728 which has been attributed to George II's displeasure with one of his legal opinions.