Mountifort Longfield

Samuel Mountifort Longfield (1802 – 21 November 1884) was an Irish lawyer, judge, mathematician, and academic. He was the first Professor of Political Economy at Trinity College, Dublin. Life He was son of Mountifort Longfield, vicar of Desert Serges (Desert Magee), County Cork, and his wife Grace, daughter of William Lysaght of Fort William and Mount North, County Cork. He was educated at Trinity College Dublin, graduated as moderator and gold medallist in science in 1823, became a fellow in 1825, and proceeded to the degrees of M.A. in 1829 and LL.D. in 1831. In 1828 Longfield was called to the Irish bar, but did not practise. When the professorship of political economy in Trinity College was founded in 1832, he was appointed the first professor; and in 1834 he resigned his fellowship and became Regius Professor of Feudal and English Law there, a post he held for the rest of his life, from 1871 having as deputy N. Ritchie, Q.C. Longfield was reputed as a real property lawyer. In 1842 he became a Queen's Counsel, and in 1859 a bencher of the King's Inns. On the passing of the Incumbered Estates Act in 1849 he was appointed one of the three commissioners for it, holding office until the landed estates court was constituted in 1858. He became a judge of the court, and continued to sit until 1867.