In December 1813, Shepherd was made Solicitor General for England and Wales, and returned to Parliament for Dorchester on 11 April 1814. He received a knighthood from the Prince Regent on 11 May 1814, and became Attorney General for England and Wales in 1817. Shepherd was an excellent and popular lawyer, who would have become far more successful if it was not for his deafness; he refused the offices of both Lord Chief Justice of the Court of King's Bench and Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, partly due to his deafness and partly because he refused to hold a judicial office that involved the trial of prisoners. In London his address was 38 Bloomsbury Square.[3]
In June 1819 he accepted the position of Lord Chief Baron of the Scottish Court of Exchequer, becoming a member of the Privy Council on 23 July, and as Lord Chief Baron advised Scottish judges on the application of English treason law to the participants of the Radical War. He moved to Edinburgh living at Newington House.[4]
In February 1830 Shepherd was forced to retire due to ill health. He became totally blind in 1837. He died in a cottage at Streatley, Berkshire on 3 November 1840.[2]
Newington House stood on what is now Blacket Avenue and was demolished in 1966.[6]
Family
On 1 January 1783, Shepherd married Miss Elizabeth White (d. 1833), daughter of John White of Hicks Hall in St Sepulchre in outer London, sister of John White the Attorney General of Canada.[3] Their son, Henry John Shepherd KC (d. 1866), was a legal author.[1]
