RUMSEY, WALTER (1584 - 1660), judge

Name: Walter Rumsey
Date of birth: 1584
Date of death: 1660
Parent: Anne Rumsey (née David)
Parent: John Rumsey
Gender: Male
Occupation: judge
Area of activity: Law
Author: Robert Thomas Jenkins

Born at Llanover, Monmouthshire, in 1584, son of John Rumsey and his wife Anne (David). In 1660 he went up to Gloucester Hall (now Worcester College), Oxford, and in 1603 to Gray's Inn (of which he became Bencher in 1631); he was called to the Bar in 1608, and had a very lucrative practice. In 1631 he became judge of the south-eastern circuit of the Great Sessions of Wales; he was Member of Parliament for Monmouthshire in the Short Parliament, 1640. He was a royalist, was imprisoned when Hereford city fell in December 1645, and was deprived of his judgeship in 1647. In 1660 he was made Keeper of the Seals in his former circuit, but died before the end of that year, and was buried in the family vault at Llanover. He made hobbies of music, the grafting of trees, and the construction of fishponds; and in 1657 he published a medical work, Organon Salutis (it went into three editions), which (along with remarks on coffee and tobacco) described a device of his for the internal cleansing of the throat.

Author

Published date: 1959

Article Copyright: http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/

The Dictionary of Welsh Biography is provided by The National Library of Wales and the University of Wales Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies. It is free to use and does not receive grant support. A donation would help us maintain and improve the site so that we can continue to acknowledge Welsh men and women who have made notable contributions to life in Wales and beyond.

Find out more on our sponsorship page.