William Brett, 1st Viscount Esher

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William Baliol Brett, 1st Viscount Esher

William Baliol Brett, 1st Viscount Esher PC (August 13, 1817 - May 24, 1899), English lawyer and Master of the Rolls.

Brett was a son of the Rev. Joseph G. Brett, of Chelsea. He was educated at Westminster and at Caius College, Cambridge. Called to the bar in 1840, he went to the northern circuit, and became a Queens Counsel in 1861.

On the death of Richard Cobden he unsuccessfully contested Rochdale as a Conservative, but in 1866 was returned for Helston in unique circumstances. He and his opponent polled exactly the same number of votes, whereupon the mayor, as returning officer, gave his casting vote for the Liberal candidate. As this vote was given after four o'clock, however, an appeal was lodged, and the House of Commons allowed both members to take their seats.

Brett rapidly made his mark in the House, and in 1868 he was appointed Solicitor General. On behalf of the crown he prosecuted the Fenians charged with having caused the Clerkenwell explosion. In parliament he took a leading part in the promotion of bills connected with the administration of law and justice. He was (August 1868) appointed a justice in the Court of Common Pleas. Some of his sentences in this capacity excited much criticism, notably so in the case of the gas stokers' strike, when he sentenced the defendants to imprisonment for twelve months, with hard labor, which was afterwards reduced by the Home Secretary to four months.

On the reconstitution of the Court of Appeal in 1876, Brett was elevated to the rank of a Lord Justice. After holding this position for seven years, he succeeded Sir George Jessel as Master of the Rolls in 1883. In 1885 he was raised to the House of Lords as Baron Esher. He opposed the bill proposing that an accused person or his wife might give evidence in their own case, and supported the bill which empowered Lords of Appeal to sit and vote after their retirement. The Solicitors Act 1888, which increased the powers of the Incorporated Law Society, owed much to his influence. In 1880 he delivered a remarkable speech in the house of Lords, deprecating the delay and expense of trials, which he regarded as having been increased by the Judicature Acts.

In 1852 he married Eugenie Meyer, possibly the illegitimate daughter of Napoleon Bonaparte and Fanny Meyer (although family history suggests that her father was one Louis Mayer about whom nothing is known). They had two sons, Reginald (2nd Viscount Esher) and Eugene, and a daughter Violet.

Lord Esher suffered, perhaps, as Master of the Rolls, from succeeding a lawyer of such eminence as Jessel. He had a caustic tongue, but also a fund of shrewd common sense, and one of his favorite considerations was whether a certain course was business or not. He retired from the bench at the close of 1897, and a Viscountcy was conferred upon him on his retirement, a dignity never given to any judge, Lord Chancellors excepted, for mere legal conduct since the time of Lord Coke. He died in London.

Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by Robert Campbell	Member of Parliament for Helston 1866–1868	Succeeded by Adolphus William Young
Legal Offices
Preceded by Charles Jasper Selwyn	Solicitor General February 1868–September 1868	Succeeded by Sir Richard Baggallay
Preceded by Sir George Jessel	Master of the Rolls 1883–1897	Succeeded by Nathaniel Lindley
Peerage of the United Kingdom
Preceded by (new creation)	Viscount Esher 1897–1899	Succeeded by Reginald Brett