55 o BRITISH OBITUARY 1912 



The following were prominent in the legal professions 



Sir Gainsford Bruce, Judge of the High Court; b. 1834; d. January 23rd. He graduated 

 at Glasgow University and was called to the bar in 1859. He joined the Northern and 

 afterwards the North-Eastern circuit, and from 1869-82 reported Admiralty and Ecclesiasti- 

 cal cases for the Law Reports. His strength lay in Admiralty law, and he made several 

 contributions to its literature; notably Williams and Bruce's Admiralty Practice, and the 

 4th edition of Maude and Pollock on Shipping. He was Recorder of Bradford from 1877-92, 

 and successively solicitor-general (1879) and attorney-general (1886) to the County-Palatine 

 of Durham. A Conservative in politics, he represented Holborn in Parliament from 1888 

 till he was raised to the bench in 1892. 



Sir John Compton Lawrance, Judge of the High Court; b. 1832; d. December 5th. Called 

 to the bar in 1859, he became Q.C. in 1877 and Recorder of Derby in 1879. In 1880 he 

 was returned to Parliament as Conservative member for South Lincolnshire, and in 1885 was 

 elected member for the Stamford division. He was made a Judge in 1890, and sat on the 

 Bench for 22 years, retiring March 1912. 



Sir Alfred Wills, Judge of the High Court; b. 1828; d. August loth. He was educated at 

 University College, London, and was called to the bar in 1851. After some years on the 

 Midland and North-Eastern Circuits, he was appointed to a judgeship in the Queen's Bench 

 Division in 1884, and four years later acted as the first ex-officio commissioner under the Rail- 

 way Canal Traffic Act. Very few of his decisions or opinions were reversed upon appeal. 

 His ability for dealing with complicated cases was notably shown: in Cockertori v. London 

 School Board, the point at issue being the power of the School Board to pay for higher 

 technical education out of the rates. His judgment, adverse to the Board, was affirmed by 

 the Court of Appeal; and in the case of Sharp -v. Wakefield, when, with Mr. Justice Field, 

 he asserted the unrestricted discretion of licensing justices to refuse, under certain circum- 

 stances, to renew a licence, the House of Lords upheld the decision. Sir Alfred Wills was a 

 pioneer of mountaineering (sec E. B. xviii, 938c; and i, 748d), one of the founders of the 

 Alpine Club in 1858, third president in 1863, and author of several books about climbing 

 and other Swiss experiences. His father's treatise, Wills on Circumstantial Evidence, was 

 enlarged and edited by him in book form, and went through several editions. 



Lord Stormonth Darling, Judge of the Court of Session in Scotland; b, 1845; d. June 2nd. 

 Educated at Kelso Grammar School and Edinburgh University, he was called to the Scottish 

 bar in 1867. In 1888 he entered the House of Commons as member for the Universities of 

 Edinburgh and St. Andrews, and in the same year became solicitor-general for Scotland. -In 

 1890 he was appointed a Lord of Session. 



Thomas Hutchinson Tristram, a well-known ecclesiastical lawyer; b. 1825; d. March 8th. 

 He took his D.C.L. degree in 1854, an d became an advocate of Doctors' Commons (see 

 E. B. viii, 367). When that body was dissolved in 1857 he continued to practise as counsel, 

 being eventually its last survivor. He was principally known in connection with ritual 

 cases, several times representing Mr. Mackonochie and other clergymen charged with illegal 

 practices (see E. B. xiv, 352d, and xvi, 678a), and he appeared for the promoters in the ec- 

 clesiastical suit ended by the Lincoln Judgment ('E. B. xvi, 7i2c). He was Chancellor of the 

 diocese of London, and also of the dioceses of Hereford, Ripon, Wakefield, and Chichester; 

 and Commissary-General of the Diocese and City of Canterbury. He published Conten- 

 tious Probate Pra-ctice (1881). 



John Troutbeck, the coroner for Westminster; b. 1861 ; d. February 29th. The eldest son 

 of the Rev. Dr. Troutbeck, Canon and Precentor of Westminster Abbey, he was educated 

 at Westminster School and Queen's College, Oxford, was admitted a -solicitor in 1884, and 

 became coroner for Westminster in 1888. His policy of employing an independent path- 

 ologist for post mortems, instead of the doctor in attendance, brought him on several occasions 

 into conflict with the medical profession and was objected to by the British Medical Asso- 

 ciation. But he was master in his own court, and successfully defied opposition. 



Sir Raymond West, the Anglo-Indian jurist; b. 1832; d. September 8th. Educated at 

 Queen's College, Galway, he entered the Indian Civil Service in 1856, and during the Mutiny 

 served under the resident magistrate of Belgaum. In 1871 he became a Judge of the High 

 Court of Bombay, and in 1877 a member 01 the Bombay government. In 1879 he was ap- 

 pointed to the Indian Law Commission. In 1884 he accepted for a time the office of Pro- 

 oureur-General in Egypt, and drew up a report on the French system of criminal procedure 

 as applied to an oriental people. He then returned to India, where he remained till hi:- 

 retirement in 1892. He became reader in Indian Law to the University of Cambridge, 

 holding that post till 1906. He published The Bombay Code (3 vols.), and Hindu Law, .a 

 work which passed through many editions. 



One of the magnates of finance passed away in Sir Julius Charles Wernher, Bart., th( 

 South African millionaire; d. May 2ist. He was born at Darmstadt in 1850, entered ;i 

 banking house in Frankfort, and early in 1870 came to London as a clerk. On the outbreak 

 of the Franco-German War he returned to Germany to take his place in the army and was 

 present at the fall of Paris. At the end of 1871 he was sent by Mr. Jules Porges, diamond 

 merchant of London and Paris, on a mission to Kimberley. There he remained till 1880, 

 when he was transferred to London as English representative of the firm of Porges and 



