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Sir Matthew Hale (November 1, 1609 – December 25, 1676) was an eminent judge who lived in Acton between 1667 and his death. he is most famous for his work Historia Placitorum Coronæ or The History of the Pleas of the Crown, an influential treatise on the criminal law of England. His father was a barrister but by the time he was five both his parents and died and he was sent to live with his uncle, a strict puritan. Under his influence he considered joining the clergy but while studying at Oxford he discovered the joys of life away from religion and instead became a soldier. His horrified family tried to get him to take up the law instead, with little success with Hale describing lawyers as “a barbarous set of people unfit for anything but their own trade”. He eventually returned to his studies, gave up the booze and resumed his interest in the law, eventually being called to the bar. He was a great success and much in demand. Among his notable achievements was his negotiating the surrender of Oxford to Cromwell’s forces, saving the city and its libraries. Although a royalist he accepted a position as a judge under the Commonwealth and was influential in law reform. Following the restoration he was one of the judges who tried the 29 regicides. Hale’s writings on witchcraft and marital rape were extremely influential. In 1662, he was involved in “one of the most notorious of the seventeenth century English witchcraft trials”, where he sentenced two women (Amy Duny and Rose Callender) to death for witchcraft, sorcery and “unnatural love”. The judgment in this case was extremely influential in future cases, and was used in the Salem witch trials to justify the forfeiture of the accused’s lands. There is a carved stone image of his head in St Mary’s Church.
