linguist translator author barrister
He was the only son of John Merivale of Barton Place, Exeter, and Bedford Square, London, by Ann Katencamp or Katenkamp, daughter of a German merchant settled in Exeter, and was born in that city on 5 August 1779. The grandson of Samuel Merivale (1715–1771), tutor in a local dissenting academy in Exeter, he was brought up a presbyterian.
Street John"s College.
He spent some years at Saint John"s College, Cambridge, but left without taking a degree. On 17 December 1798 he entered Lincoln"s Inn, where he was called to the bar in Hilary term 1804. He practised in chancery and bankruptcy, and published ‘Reports of Cases argued and determined in the High Court of Chancery,’ London, 1817-1819.
He sat on the Chancery Commission of 1824, in the report of which he concurred, but expounded a wider scheme of reform in A Letter to William Courtenay, Esq., on the Subject of the Chancery Commission, London, 1827.
On 2 December 1831 he was appointed to a commissionership in bankruptcy, which he held until his death, on 25 April 1844. He was buried in the churchyard, Hampstead.
His two eldest sons were Herman Merivale and Charles Merivale.
