CARLETON, HUGH, Viscount Carleton (1739–1826), lord chief justice of Ireland, eldest son of Francis Carleton of Cork, by Rebecca, daughter of John Lanton, was born 11 Sept. 1739. He was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, and being called to the Irish bar became solicitor-general in 1779, and lord chief justice of the common pleas in 1787. In 1789 he was created Baron Carleton of Amer, and in 1797 Viscount Carleton of Clare, Tipperary. He became lord chief justice in 1800, and the same year was chosen one of the twenty-eight representative peers of Ireland. In 1803, having incensed the mob by the trial and condemnation of the two councillors Sheers, to whom he had been left guardian by their father, he only escaped their summary vengeance by Lord Kilwarden being killed in mistake for him. Curran, referring to the lugubrious manner of Carleton on the bench, said that he was plaintiff (plaintive) in every case before him. He died in 1826. He married in 1766 Elizabeth, only daughter of Richard Mercer, and in 1795 Mary Buckley, second daughter of Andrew Matthew; but by neither marriage had he any issue.
[Georgian Era, ii. 540; Gent. Mag. 1826, i. 270.]