Politician. He received recognition as an 18th-century lawyer who was responsible for British legal reforms in lessening the severity of sentencing of British criminal courts, including the sentencing of the death penalty for minor offenses, such as begging of the poor. At the time of his request for reforms, there were over 200 offenses punishable by death. In 1808, Romilly repealed the statute, which dated to the time of Queen Elizabeth I, that made stealing from a person a crime punishable by death. Born the youngest of nine children to French Huguenot parents, his father was a wealthy jeweler, and his sister, Catherine was the mother of Peter Mark Roget, who gained fame for creating the first "Thesaurus." He received little formal education, except working in his father's jewelry shop learning watchmaking. After inheriting 2,000 pounds from a French relative, he excelled in the study of French literature. He became a lawyer's clerk and was admitted to the Bar in 1783. While studying law, he became interested in politics after listening to debates at the House of Commons. His 1784 published paper on the rights of juries in libel cases with the anticipation of the Libel Act of 1792, brought him to the notice of senior colleagues. He had a slow start establishing a law practice. After serving as a successful lawyer, he was appointed by the Whig Party in 1806 as solicitor general, was knighted, and since a requirement for solicitor general, entered the House of Commons as a member of parliament for Queenborough. In 1807, the Tories removed him from the solicitor general, but he remained a member of parliament. The next year the House of Lords rejected three bills under which Romilly had intended to remove the death penalty for shoplifting, stealing from dwelling houses, and on navigable rivers. These rejections happened year after year, even with his zealous persistence with these reforms. He did overturn the law which gave a death sentence to a soldier or a sailor to go begging without a permit from a magistrate or his commanding officer. He sought changes in England's bankruptcy procedures. He supported the French Revolution, and after traveling to Paris, he published his first book in 1786, "Thoughts on Executive Justice". In 1790, he published a book on the war, "Thoughts on the Probable Influence of the French Revolution on Great Britain." By 1791, his law practice was very successful, which gained him political independence. In 1798, he married Anne, the daughter of Francis Garbett of Knill in Herefordshire. He became active with the London Corresponding Society, a group of mainly working-class people, who debated political matters and printed literature on a host of subjects. The London Corresponding Society was made illegal by Parliament in 1799, thus coming to an end. In May of 1804 he was appointed a member of the legal team to conduct the impeachment of Viscount Melville, the First Lord of the Admiralty for financial irregularities. Melville resigned in 1805. He served as chancellor of Durham from 1805 to 1815. After being a Parliament Member for a year, he and several colleagues in the House of Commons resigned in March of 1807. Throughout his life, he continued to take steps to abolish slavery. He received recognition throughout Europe with the 1810 publication, "Observations on the Criminal Law of England." He published many of his Parliamentary speeches in widely read periodicals such as the "Edinburgh Review" and the changes he envisioned were eventually enacted. The next year, he purchased other parliamentary seats for the next twelve years. He supported the Catholic Emancipation Act, which gave basic civil rights to English and Irish Catholics. His voice could be heard over and over fighting for reforms. On October 29, 1818, his wife died on the Isle of Wight after suffering for a year. Three days later, he was greatly overcome with grief, cutting his throat with a razor. He was buried next to his wife. He and his wife had seven children. His "Memoirs" were published in 1840.