William Forsyth QC

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For other persons named William Forsyth, see William Forsyth (disambiguation).

William Forsyth QC (October 25, 1812 - December 26, 1899) was a Scottish lawyer and MP. He was born at Greenock in Renfrewshire, son of Thomas Forsyth and Jean Campbell Hamilton. He died at Knightsbridge, Middlesex.

He went to the University of Cambridge in 1830. He was admitted at the Inner Temple in 1834 and called to the Bar in 1839. He became a Bencher in 1857, Queen's Counsel in 1857 and Treasurer in 1872. He worked on the Midland Circuit. He was Standing Counsel to Secretary of State for India 1859 to 1874. He became M.P. for Cambridge in 1865 but was unseated in April 1866, being disqualified as holding an office of profit under the Crown. He became M.P. for Marylebone, 1875 to 1880. He wrote a number of books on historial and legal subjects, including Life of Cicero (1864), Novels and Novelists of the Eighteen Century (1853) and Hannibal in Italy (1872). He was also editor of several magazines, and a member of the Canterbury Association from 1848 to 1850. His will probated at £18,667 in 1899.

[edit] Family

Forsyth was married twice. He was firstly married to Mary Lyall (daughter of George Lyall and Margaret Ann Edwards) (1819 - 1864), in 1843, by whom he had six children (two sons and four daughters). He remarried to Georgina Plummer in 1866 by whom he had children also. Wikipedia entries for his descendants and spouses of descendants include Doreen Knatchbull, Baroness Brabourne, James Stanhope, 7th Earl Stanhope and John Hamilton Wedgwood.