John Balfour, 1st Baron Kinross

John Blair Balfour as Lord Advocate of Scotland in a cartoon by Spy in Vanity Fair magazine (May 1, 1886)

John Blair Balfour, 1st Baron Kinross PC (born July 11, 1837 in Clackmannan , Clackmannanshire , † January 22, 1905 in Edinburgh ) was a British lawyer and politician of the Liberal Party , who between 1880 and 1899 was a member of the House of Commons and three time attorney General ( Lord Advocate ) of Scotland was. Between 1899 and 1905 he held the position of Lord President of the Court of Session and was thus the chief judge of Scotland. In 1902, as Baron Kinross, he was raised to the hereditary nobility ( Hereditary Peerage ) of the Peerage of the United Kingdom and was a member of the House of Lords until his death .

Life

Member of the House of Commons, Solicitor General and Lord Advocate

Balfour, son of clergyman Peter Balfour and his wife Jane Ramsey Blair, graduated from school with a law degree from the University of Edinburgh , from which he graduated with a Doctor of Law (LL.D.). He then took up a position as a lawyer.

On December 1, 1880 Balfour was elected as a candidate of the Liberal Party to a member of the House of Commons and represented in this until 1899 the constituency of Clackmannan and Kinross . Shortly after his election he was appointed Solicitor General for Scotland by Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone as successor to John Macdonald and held this position until his replacement by Alexander Asher in 1881. He then succeeded John McLaren as Attorney General (Lord Advocate) of Scotland and remained in this position until he was replaced by John Macdonald in 1885. During this time, he also became a member of the Privy Council (PC) in 1883 .

In February 1886, Balfour was reappointed Lord Advocate by Prime Minister Gladstone and held this office until July 1886. Prime Minister Gladstone appointed him Lord Advocate for the third time in August 1892. He also held this position in the government of Gladstone's successor Archibald Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery from March 1894 to June 1895.

Chief Justice of Scotland and Member of the House of Lords

1899 Balfour, who temporarily also Deputy Lieutenant and Justice of the Peace (justice of the peace) of Edinburgh was as successor to James Robertson, Baron Robertson as Lord President of the Court of Sessions . He was thus the chief judge of Scotland and remained in this office until his death on January 22, 1905. He was succeeded by Andrew Murray .

By a Letters Patent of July 15, 1902 Balfour was also as Baron Kinross , of Glasclune, in the County of Haddington, in the hereditary nobility (Hereditary peerage) raised the Peerage of the United Kingdom, making it one until his death in the House of Lords as a member.

Marriages and offspring

Family tombstone of John Balfour, 1st Baron Kinross, in Dean Cemetery , Edinburgh

Balfour has been married twice. In his first marriage he married Lilias Oswald Mackenzie on August 4, 1869, a daughter of Donald Mackenzie, Lord Mackenzie , who was a judge at the Supreme Court (Senator of the College of Justice) of Scotland. From this marriage his eldest son Patrick Balfour emerged, who inherited the title of 2nd Baron Kinross after his death.

After the death of his first wife on June 19, 1872, Balfour married Marianne Eliza Moncreiff, daughter of James Moncreiff, 1st Baron Moncreiff, on April 6, 1877 .

From this marriage four other sons and one daughter were born. The second eldest son, James Moncreiffe Balfour, was a captain in the Scottish Horse cavalry regiment and later adviser to the government of Persia . The third son, John Ramsay Blair Balfour, was Lieutenant Commander of the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve. The fourth son Harry Robert Chichester Balfour served as a captain in the Royal Scots in the First World War and was later an official in the House and the Ministry of Interior ( Home Office ) . The fifth and youngest son, Norman Frederick William Balfour, was a clergyman. Balfour's youngest child and only daughter, Isobel Nora Gwendoline Balfour, was temporarily married to Percival Henry Havelock Bailey, captain of the British Indian Army's 34th Royal Sikh Pioneers .

Web links

• John Balfour, 1st Baron Kinross at the Hansard (English)
• Entry in Cracroft's Peerage
• Entry in Leigh Rayment Peerage
• John Blair Balfour, 1st Baron Kinross on thepeerage.com , accessed September 14, 2016.

predecessor	Office	successor
New title created	Baron Kinross 1902-1905	Patrick Balfour