John Eardley Wilmot

Sir John Eardley Wilmot
Portrait by Benjamin West (detail)
Born	16 August 1709 Derby, Derbyshire
Died	5 February 1792 (1792-02-06) (aged 82) London
Occupation	Judge

Sir John Eardley Wilmot PC SL (Derby, England, 16 August 1709 – London, 5 February 1792), was an English judge, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas from 1766 to 1771.

Wilmot was the second son of Robert Wilmot (1669–1738), of Osmaston Hall, near Derby, and his wife Ursula, who was the daughter of Sir Samuel Marow, Bt, of Berkswell, Warwickshire. His paternal grandfather was Sir Nicholas Wilmot (1611–1682), a serjeant-at-law knighted in 1674. His elder brother Robert (c.1708–1772) was another lawyer who went into the service of the crown, was knighted in 1739 and created a baronet (Wilmot of Osmaston) in 1772.

John Eardley Wilmot was educated at Derby School, then with Dr John Hunter at Lichfield, where his contemporaries included Samuel Johnson and David Garrick. He then went to Westminster School and Trinity Hall, Cambridge, where he matriculated in 1727, before studying law in London at the Inner Temple, as his father and older brother had done before him, and was called to the bar in 1732.