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. 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, more than one hundred Judges of the King’s Bench Division of the High Court of Justice (and one from the Family Division) have been nominated to sit in the Commercial Court. The list of Commercial Judges 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-five Law Lords, seven Justices of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom, seven Masters of the Rolls, five Lords Chief Justice, three Presidents of the Probate, Divorce & Admiralty/Family Division, one Chancellor of the High Court, and one Lord Chancellor. This proud tradition of judicial excellence is maintained by the current Judges, all of whom have been individually selected by the Lord Chief Justice, on the basis of their experience and expertise in commercial litigation, to sit in the Commercial Court.

“Commercial Court”: Sir James Charles Mathew.

King’s Bench Judges currently nominated to sit in the Court

Serving appellate Judges who previously sat in the Court