The Sun.
London, England, 1867-10-08 00:00:00

DEATH OF LORD KINGSDOWN.

Lord Kingsdown died last night at his seat,
Torre-hill, in Kent. Although the deceased noble-
man never filled any prominent office in the State ;
although he retired from the bar a quarter of a
century ago, and has since devoted his great judicial
talents and legal experience almost exclusively to a
tribunal which does not often challenge public atten-
tion ; although his whole life has been singularly
retired and uneventful, for he was a man alike de-
void of vanity and of ambition ; yet those who knew
the strength and purity of his unobtrusive career
place him, without hesitation, in the very highest
rank of English lawyers; and even to the public
his name, associated with some of the most en-

lightened and important judgments of modern times,
carried a degree of weight not always attached to
names of higher official authority.

Thomas Pemberton was born in London on the
11th of Feb., 1793. He descended on his father's
side from an honourable family in Warrington, and
on his mother's from It branch of the family of
Leigh, to whose vast :Assessions near Wigan he
eventually succeeded. His education was not of a
character to prefigure his future distinction in life ;
for he was at no public school, at no University,
and he began his legal career in a solicitor's
Yet his scholarship was correct, and his taste for
classical literature constant and unabated. It was
not long, however, before his remarkable clearness
and precision of intellect began to give indications
of uncommon ability. He read for the bar in the
chambers of his maternal uncle, Mr. Cooke, a dis.•
tinguished equity lawyer of his day, and in 1816
Mr. Pemberton was called to the bar by the
Honourable Society of Lincoln's-inn. Although only
18 months elapsed between his call and the lamented
death of Sir Samuel Romilly, then at the head of his
profession, that time was long enough for the over-
worked leader to remark the rare qualities and
great promise of the youthful junior. Fifty years
afterwards Lord Kingsdown, himself a member of
the House of Peers, introduced at the bar of that
house another peer, Lord Romilly, the son of one
of the first prophets of his own success.
Pemberton rose rapidly into extensive practice.
In 1829 he received a silk gown, and for many years,
especially after the elevation of Bickersteth to the
Bench, he stood at the head of the Bar, in his own
court, the Rolls. In 1841, on the formation of Sir

R. Peel's Administration, he accepted the office,
more onerous than lucrative, of Attorney-General to
the Prince of Wales. In January, 1843, the death

of his aged and eccentric kinsman, Sir Robt. Leigh,
placed Mr. Pemberton in possession of a life interest
in the Wigan estates, amounting to about £17,000 a

year. This income, in addition to his own large pro-
fessional gains, raised him to affluence ; he retired
from the Bar, was sworn of the Privy Council as
Chancellor of the Duchy of Cornwall, and shortly
afterwards entered on his judicial duties as a mem-
ber of the Judicial Committee of that bo3y. These

duties he continued to perform for 20 years with
unremitting diligence, but entirely without emolu-
ment, and with no outward recognition of his ser-
vices except the peerage, which was first offered to
him by Lord John Russell in 1853, and eventually
conferred on him by Lord Derby in 1858.

During the greater part of his career at the Bar
Mr. Pemberton sat in the house of Commons for

the borough of Rye, and afterwards for the borough
of Ripon. He was warmly attached to the principles
of the Conservative party and to their illustrious
leader, Sir R. Peel; but he was devoid of that party
eagerness and passion which impel men to play a pro-
minent part in the House of Commons. His speeches
were rare and unimpassioned. Perhaps the most re-
markable of them was that in which he resisted the
pretensions of the house on the memorable privilege
case of Stockdale v. Hansard, and lent his support to
the maintenance of judicial authority. After his
elevation to the House of Lords Lord Kingsdown
rarely took a part in the political debates of that
body. lie gave his services to the judicial business
of the house, although he never approved the con-
stitution or procedure of the house as a court of last
resort, and regretted his inability to correct its de-
fects. But it was in the more congenial atmosphere
of the Privy Council, where the practice and forms
of proceeding had gradually been moulded and
settled by Lord Kingsdown's own influence and
example, that he has left the most conspicuous
traces of his judicial ability.
In 1858, upon the formation of Lord Derby's
Administration, the Great Seal was offered to Mr.
Pemberton Leigh (as he was then called), and, no
doubt, if he had accepted it, his name would have
added considerably to the weight and dignity of that
short-lived Ministry. But he refused it. His singu-
lar modesty, his want of dash and self-reliance, his
dislike of outward show and display, his extreme
shyness of disposition, and his indifference to the
emoluments of office rendered him averse to the
honour for which other men have toiled their lives
away. By some this refusal was attributed to in-
dolence ; but indolence can hardly be ascribed to
one of the most successful advocates of the English
bar, or to a man who would spend untold and unre-
mitting labour to bring to perfection whatever he
had undertaken to perform. Thus, the services ren-
dered by Lord Kingsdown to the Duchy of Corn-
wall, in his capacity of Chancellor to the Prince,
were of incalculable value, and resulted in placing
that magnificent demesne on a totally different foot-
ing. The predominant quality of Lord Kingsdown's
character was a fastidious refinement, which re-
moved him altogether from the common pursuits of
fame and power. "No breath of popularity," as he
once expressed it, " ever touched his sail." But, if
he was sensitive to the shortcomings and imperfec-
tions of others, he was not less exacting in all that
concerned himself. Nothing satisfied him in his
own productions short of the highest perfection
which he was able to attain. Many of his judg-
ments were written several times over ; all were
revised with elaborate minuteness. In 1858,
when the Great Seal was offered him, he
had already quitted the Court of Chancery
for 15 years, and, strange as it may seem, we sus-
pect that the reason which mainly determined his
refusal was a distrust of his ability to perform the
duties of the Chancellor after so long an interval in
a manner entirely adequate to his conception of
their importance. Perhaps it is fortunate for the
world that not all men are equally scrupulous or
conscientious.
It would not be suitable in this place to enter
upon a minute analysis of Lord Kingsdown's judi-
cial labours; but his qualities as a judge were held
by those who sat with him in the administration of
justice to be literally unrivalled. The mind he
brought to bear on the question before him was
deep, clear, and unruffled ; his patience was inex-
haustible; his sense of justice and of right even
more acute than his love of legal precision and accu-
racy. He searched and brought out the judicial
principle of which the law itself is but the form and
expression ; and he aimed at framing the decisions
of the Court on large grounds of analogy and rea-
son. The wide jurisdiction of the Privy Council
was favourable to the application Of these principles.
Lord Kingsdown mastered with extraordinary care
the complicated subject of the land tenures of India;
he more than once opposed an insurmountable bar-
rier to the exactions of the Indian Government, and
he taught the judicial authorities of India many an
invaluable lesson of moderation and wisdom. The
appellate jurisdiction of the Crown over the colonial
courts of either hemisphere is now almost the sole
link which holds together the British empire. We