View source for Paul Dudley (jurist)

{{short description|American lawyer}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=March 2022}}
{{Infobox officeholder
| name                = Paul Dudley
| image               = Paul Dudley (1675–1751).png
| image_size          = 220
| office1             = Chief Justice of the [[Massachusetts Superior Court of Judicature]]
| appointer1          = [[William Shirley]]
| term_start1         = 1745
| term_end1           = 1751
| predecessor1        = [[Benjamin Lynde Sr.]]
| successor1          = [[Stephen Sewall]]
| office2             = Associate Justice of the [[Massachusetts Superior Court of Judicature]]
| appointer2          = [[Samuel Shute]]
| term_start2         = 1718
| term_end2           = 1745
| predecessor2        = [[Samuel Sewall]]
| successor2          = Nathaniel Hubbard
| office3             = 1st [[Massachusetts Attorney General|Attorney General of Massachusetts]]
| governor3           = [[Joseph Dudley]]<br />[[William Tailer]]<br />[[Samuel Shute]]
| term_start3         = 1702
| term_end3           = 1718
| predecessor3        = ''Office established''
| successor3          = John Valentine
| party               = 
| birth_date          = {{birth date|1675|9|3}}
| birth_place         = [[Roxbury, Boston|Roxbury]], [[Massachusetts Bay Colony]]
| death_date          = {{death date and age|1751|1|25|1675|9|3}}
| death_place         = [[Roxbury, Boston|Roxbury]], [[Province of Massachusetts Bay]]
| partner             = 
| education           = [[Harvard University]]
| signature           = Signature of Paul Dudley (1675–1751).png
}}

'''Paul Dudley''', [[Fellow of the Royal Society|FRS]] (September 3, 1675 &ndash; January 25, 1751) was an American lawyer who served as the [[Massachusetts Attorney General]]. He was the son of colonial governor [[Joseph Dudley]] and grandson of one of the colony's founders, [[Thomas Dudley]].<ref name=Maier>{{cite journal|last1=Maier|first1=Pauline|title=The Pope at Harvard: The Dudleian Lectures, Anti-Catholicism, and the Politics of Protestantism|journal=Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society|date=1985|volume=97|page=17|jstor=25080941}}</ref>

Dudley was born in [[Roxbury, Massachusetts]] in 1675.<ref name=Maier/> After graduating from the [[Roxbury Latin School]] and then, at the age of 15, from [[Harvard University|Harvard]] in 1690, he studied [[law]] at the [[Inner Temple|Temple]] in [[London]], and became [[Attorney General of Massachusetts]] from 1702 to 1718. He was [[associate justice]] of the province's highest court, the [[Massachusetts Superior Court of Judicature|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 ''[[Philosophical Transactions|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]].<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=PnsFAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA176 ''History of western Massachusetts: '']</ref> Along with his brother, William, he was the first proprietor and namesake of [[Dudley, Massachusetts]]. In 1705, Dudley was recorded as owning an [[Slavery in the colonial history of the United States|enslaved boy]], and he acquired another slave in 1745 named Guinea.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Wayback Machine |url=https://radcliffe-harvard-edu-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/3d37f30c-a266-4be8-bd4b-234dca08497f/AppendixI-ListofHumanBeingsEnslavedbyProminentHarvardAffiliates.pdf |archive-url=http://web.archive.org/web/20220509144334/https://radcliffe-harvard-edu-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/3d37f30c-a266-4be8-bd4b-234dca08497f/AppendixI-ListofHumanBeingsEnslavedbyProminentHarvardAffiliates.pdf |archive-date=2022-05-09 |access-date=2025-10-26 |website=radcliffe-harvard-edu-prod.s3.amazonaws.com}}</ref>

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

==References==
<references />
{{EB1911|wstitle=Dudley, Thomas|volume=8|page=637}}

{{Justices of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court}}
{{Dudley–Winthrop family}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dudley, Paul}}
[[Category:1675 births]]
[[Category:1751 deaths]]
[[Category:Slave owners from the Thirteen Colonies]]
[[Category:Burials at Eliot Burying Ground]]
[[Category:Fellows of the Royal Society]]
[[Category:Harvard University alumni]]
[[Category:Justices of the Massachusetts Superior Court of Judicature]]
[[Category:Lawyers from Boston]]
[[Category:18th-century American lawyers]]
[[Category:Lawyers from colonial Massachusetts]]
[[Category:Massachusetts attorneys general]]
[[Category:People from Roxbury, Boston]]
[[Category:Roxbury Latin School alumni]]
[[Category:Writers from Boston]]


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