LORD CHIEF JUSTICE OF ENGLAND.

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 1881, 15 October 1913, Page 7

LORD CHIEF JUSTICE OF ENGLAND.

—c — RESIGNATION OF LORD ALVERSTONE. By Telegraph—Prtsa Association—Copyright London, October 13. Lord Alverstane, who has been in illhealth for some time, lias resigned the Lord Chief Justiceship of England, a position which ho has occupied since 1900. Lord Alverstono's career at the Bar was singularly rapid. Ho was called to the Bar in 186S, and ten years later took silk. He unsuccessfully contested Bewdle.y in 1880. In 1885, though he had not been elected to Parliament, he was nominated Attorney-General by Lord Salisbury, and ft seat was found for him at La'unceston. At the general elections in tho same year lie was elected for the Isle of Wight, which constituency he represented until 1900. On Lord Salisbury taking office in 1893, Lord Alverstone, or Sir Richard Webster as he was then, was appointed Attorney-General—the third occasion on which the honour had been conferred upon him. He conducted, while 'Attorney-General in 1889, the case for "The Times" before the Parnell Conimission, and tho battles l>etween Mm and tho late Sir Charles (Lord) Russell -were Homeric. He was "given away" by Pigott, and because lie did not choose to disbelieve Pigott's confession as fully as Russell disbelieved Pigott's evidence, ho was made the butt of the Radical hack and caricaturist of the time to a most unfair extent. In 1893 ho conducted 1 tho case for Great Britain, before tho arbitrators on the claims of the United States in the Behring Sea, and this brought'him a G.C.M.G. He succeeded _ this exploit by carrying most of tho claims of Great Britain before the Venezuela Arbitration Court, which brought him his baronetcy. He becaino Master of the Rolls in 1900, and Lord' Chief Justice the same year, on the death of Lord Russell. ' >