Entick v Carrington
leading case on British constitutional law and civil liberties
Entick v Carrington [1765] EWHC KB J98 is a leading case in English law and UK constitutional law establishing the civil liberties of individuals and limiting the scope of executive power. The case has also been influential in other common law jurisdictions and was an important motivation for the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution. It is famous for the dictum of Lord Camden: "If it is law, it will be found in our books."
Facts
On 11 November 1762, the King's Chief Messenger, Nathan Carrington, and three other King's messengers, James Watson, Thomas Ardran, and Robert Blackmore, broke into the home of the Grub Street writer John Entick (c. 1703 – 1773) in the parish of St Dunstan, Stepney "with force and arms". Over the course of four hours, they broke open locks and doors and searched all of the rooms before taking away 100 charts and 100 pamphlets, causing £2,000 of damage (equivalent to £355,521 in 2025). The King's messengers were acting on the orders of Lord Halifax, newly appointed Secretary of State for the Northern Department, "to make strict and diligent search for ... the author, or one concerned in the writing of several weekly very seditious papers entitled, The Monitor, or British Freeholder".
Entick sued the messengers for trespassing on his land.
Judgment
The trial took place in Westminster Hall presided over by Lord Camden, the Chief Justice of the Common Pleas. Carrington and his colleagues claimed that they acted on Halifax's warrant, which gave them legal authority to search Entick's home; they therefore could not be liable for the tort.
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Why this record matters
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Contemporary correspondence, administrative files and participant testimony can test how later narratives organized the event or institution. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 3, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q5380529. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1765, 1762, 1703 and 1773.
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This entry incorporates text from “Entick v Carrington” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.