William Pickford, 1st Baron Sterndale

William Pickford, 1st Baron Sterndale PC Kt QC (born October 1, 1848 in Rusholme , Manchester , † August 17, 1923 ) was a British lawyer who was raised to the nobility in 1918 as Baron Sterndale and thus a member of the House of Lords was and from 1919 until his death in 1923 as Master of the Rolls held the second highest judicial office in the English legal system.

Life

Lawyer and judge

Pickford, son of a carter, completed after the visit of Liverpool College studying law at Exeter College of the University of Oxford , which he in 1873 with a Bachelor of Arts graduated (BA). After his admission to the bar ( Inns of Court ) of Middle Temple , he took up a position as a barrister in 1874 and practiced at the courts responsible for the north of England (Northern Circuit) . For his legal services he was appointed Crown Attorney (Queen's Counsel) in 1893 .

In 1901 Pickford switched to the judicial service and was initially a magistrate ( recorder ) of Oldham and then from 1904 to 1907 a magistrate of Liverpool. In 1904 he was also appointed bencher of the Middle Temple Bar Association. During his judicial work in Liverpool, he also served there in 1906 as chairman of the jury court (Commissioner of Assize) for the judicial district of North East England (North Eastern Circuit) . He was also the chief legal advisor to the government at the Dogger Bank Incident Investigation Commission in Paris , which dealt with the sinking of British trawlers by the Russian Baltic Fleet on the night of October 21-22, 1904 during the Russo-Japanese War .

In 1907 Pickford was appointed judge at the High Court of Justice , the highest civil court responsible for England and Wales , where he served until 1914. This was also linked to the knight bachelor's degree in 1907, so that from then on he carried the suffix "Sir". While there, he also completed postgraduate studies at Exeter College in 1908 with a Master of Arts (MA). He was also the representative of Great Britain in 1905, 1909 and 1910 at diplomatic conferences in Brussels to standardize the law of the sea .

Pickford was in 1914 as a Lord Justice of Appeal judge at the Court of Appeal , Commissioner for England and Wales Court of Appeal , and was there until 1918 worked. At the same time took place in 1914, he was appointed Privy Counselor and 1916 as a member and 1917 as chairman of the so-called Dardanelles -Commission that deal with the consequences of the battle of Gallipoli in World War I dealt. At the same time he was in 1916 Independent Chairman of the Coal Coalition Board of South Wales .

House of Lords and Master of the Rolls

In 1918 Pickford returned as a judge to the High Court of Justice, where he succeeded Samuel Thomas Evans until he was succeeded by Henry Duke in 1919 as President of the Probate, Divorce and Admiralty Division. . By a letters patent from November 14, 1918 he was raised as a peer with the title 1st Baron Sterndale, of King Sterndale, in the County of Derby to the hereditary nobility and was thus a member of the House of Lords until his death.

Most recently, Baron Sterndale succeeded Charles Swinfen Eady, 1st Baron Swinfen as Master of the Rolls and thus as Chairman of the Civil Senate of the Court of Appeal in 1919 . Until his death four years later he held the second highest judicial office in the English legal system after the Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales . Finally, in 1923 he also served as chairman of a joint committee of the United Kingdom Parliament on the transport of goods and goods by sea. After his death, Ernest Pollock followed him as Master of the Rolls .

Since he died without male descendants, the title of Baron Sterndale became extinct with his death. From its closed on 18 August 1880 marriage to Alice Marybrooke two daughters were born, including the second daughter Mary Ada Pickford , who until her death in 1934 from 1931 for the Conservative Party the constituency Hammersmith North as deputies in the House of Commons represented.

Web links

• William Pickford at Hansard (English)
• Entry in Cracroft's Peerage
• Entry in Leigh Rayment Peerage
• William Pickford, 1st and last Baron Sterndale, on thepeerage.com , accessed August 19, 2015.
• Entry in peerages