William Pickford, 1st Baron Sterndale

William Pickford, 1st Baron Sterndale PC (1 October 1848–7 August 1923) was a British lawyer and judge. He served as a Lord Justice of Appeal between 1914 and 1918, as President of the Probate, Divorce and Admiralty Division between 1918 and 1919 and as Master of the Rolls between 1919 and 1923.

Contents

Background and education

Pickford was educated at Liverpool College and Exeter College, Oxford.

Legal and judicial career

Pickford was appointed a Lord Justice of Appeal and sworn of the Privy Council in 1914.[1] In 1916 he was chairman of the Dardanelles Commission[2]. He was made President of the Probate, Divorce and Admiralty Division and raised to the peerage as Baron Sterndale, of King Sterndale in the County of Derby, in 1918.[3] The following year he became Master of the Rolls, a post he held until 1923.

Family

Lord Sterndale married Alice Mary Brooke, of Sibton Park Suffolk, on 18 August 1880. They had two daughters, Dorothy Frances Pickford (b. 1881) and Mary (Molly) Ada Pickford (b. 1884). His wife Alice died after childbirth on 5 September 1884. Sterndale's daughter the Hon. Mary Ada Pickford sat as Conservative Member of Parliament for Hammersmith North from 1931 to 1934. Lord Sterndale died in August 1923, aged 74, when the barony became extinct. He is buried at King Sterndale Church near Buxton, Derbyshire.

References

  1. ^ London Gazette: no. 28831. p. 3909. 15 May 1914.
  2. ^ From: 'Appendix 1', Office-Holders in Modern Britain: Volume 10: Officials of Royal Commissions of Inquiry 1870-1939 (1995), pp. 85-8. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.asp?compid=16611. Date accessed: 12 August 2007.
  3. ^ London Gazette: no. 31013. p. 13492. 15 November 1918.
Legal offices
Preceded by
Sir Samuel Evans
President of the Probate, Divorce and Admiralty Division
1918–1919
Succeeded by
Sir Henry Duke
Preceded by
Sir Charles Swinfen Eady
Master of the Rolls
1919–1923
Succeeded by
Sir Ernest Pollock
Peerage of the United Kingdom
New creation Baron Sterndale
1918 – 1923
Extinct