John Denham (judge)

Sir John Denham (1559–1639) was an English-born judge who spent part of his career in Ireland. He is chiefly remembered now as one of the "Ship-money judges" who decided the so-called Ship Money case, Rex v. Hampden, a dispute which helped to kindle the English Civil War. He was the father of the poet Sir John Denham. From 1609 he was Chief Baron of the Irish Exchequer; from 1612, Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench in Ireland, and a member of the Privy Council of Ireland; and from 1615, following the dismissal of Arthur Chichester, he became one of the Lords Justices of Ireland. In 1617 he was recalled to England to be appointed one of the Barons of the Exchequer in England. Sir Francis Bacon held him in high esteem.

He is not to be confused with Sir John Dynham of Boarstall, High Sheriff of Buckinghamshire in 1621-1622, whose will was proved in 1636.