Portrait of Charles Pratt, 1st Earl Camden (1714-1794), seated three-quarter-length, in a maroon coat and breeches, holding a book

Charles Pratt, 1st Earl Camden, was a distinguished lawyer, judge and Whig politician, celebrated for his principled defence of civil liberties. Born in Kensington, the son of Sir John Pratt, Chief Justice of the King’s Bench, he was educated at Eton, King’s College, Cambridge, and the Inner Temple, where he was called to the bar in 1738. In 1749 he married Elizabeth Jeffreys, whose substantial inheritance enabled him to acquire Camden Place in Kent, the seat from which his title is taken. A close confidant of William Pitt the Elder, he was elevated to the peerage as Baron Camden in 1765 and created Earl Camden in 1782. Mannings (loc. cit.) tentatively proposes a date of 1778 for the present portrait; unfortunately the artist's Pocket Book for that year is lost.

After serving as Attorney-General from 1759-62, Pratt was appointed Chief Justice of the Common Pleas. In 1765, he delivered the landmark judgment in Entick v. Carrington, in which he ruled that government officials could not enter private property without legal authority and established the limits of executive power. A defining moment in the protection of the private individual's rights, this judgement became a cornerstone of constitutional law, which later influenced the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

A close ally of reformers such as John Wilkes and a critic of coercive policies toward the American colonies, Camden became emblematic of the Whig commitment to civil freedoms. His opposition to taxation without representation, a key quarrel in the American Revolution, ultimately led to his dismissal as Lord Chancellor. Serving under a series of titles and offices under five different prime ministers, Pratt remained a staunch advocate of constitutional moderation during a turbulent political age.