Henry James, 1st Baron James of Hereford

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Henry James, 1st Baron James of Hereford PC, QC (30 October 1828 – 18 August 1911), was an Anglo-Welsh lawyer and statesman.

He was the son of Philip Turner James, a surgeon of Hereford. His father's family were descended from the Gwynnes of Glanbran, Co Carmarthen - described in the 19th century as one of the oldest in the Empire. His grandfather, Gwynne James, was also a surgeon, while his great-grandfather, another Gwynne James, was an apothecary.

He was educated at Cheltenham College. A prizeman of the Inner Temple, he was called to the bar in 1852 and joined the Oxford circuit, where he soon came into prominence. In 1867 he was made postman of the Court of Exchequer, and in 1869 became a Queen's Counsel.

At the general election of 1868 he obtained a seat in parliament for Taunton as a Liberal, by the unseating of Mr Serjeant Cox on a scrutiny in March 1869. He kept the seat till 1885, when he was returned for Bury. He attracted attention in parliament by his speeches in 1872 in the debates on the Judicature Act.

In the September of 1873 he was made Solicitor General, and, in November, Attorney-General and was knighted. When Gladstone returned to power in 1880 he resumed his office. He was responsible for carrying the Corrupt Practices Act of 1883.

On Gladstone's conversion to Home Rule for Ireland, Sir Henry James parted from him and became one of the most influential of the Liberal Unionists. Gladstone had offered him the Lord Chancellorship in 1886, but he declined it; and the knowledge of the sacrifice he had made in refusing to follow his old chief in his new departure lent great weight to his advocacy of the Unionist cause in the country. He was one of the leading counsel for The Times before the Parnell Commission, and from 1892 to 1895 was Attorney General to the Prince of Wales. From 1895 to 1902 he was a member of the Unionist ministry as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, and in 1895 he was made a peer as Baron James of Hereford. In later years he was a prominent opponent of the Tariff Reform movement, adhering to the section of Free Trade Unionists.

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• This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.

Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by Alexander Charles Barclay and Edward William Cox	Member of Parliament for Taunton 2-seat constituency (with Alexander Charles Barclay, to 1880; Sir William Palliser, 1880–1882; Samuel Allsopp, 1882–1887 1869–1885	Succeeded by Samuel Allsopp
Preceded by Robert Needham Philips	Member of Parliament for Bury 1885–1895	Succeeded by James Kenyon
Legal Offices
Preceded by Sir John Duke Coleridge	Attorney General for England and Wales 1873–1874	Succeeded by Sir John Karslake
Preceded by Sir John Holker	Attorney General for England and Wales 1880–1885	Succeeded by Sir Richard Everard Webster
Political offices
Preceded by Richard Assheton Cross	Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster 1895–1902	Succeeded by Sir William Walrond