William Downes, 1st Baron Downes

Lord Downes by Hugh Douglas Hamilton.

William Downes, 1st Baron Downes PC (1751 – 3 March 1826) was one of the leading Irish judges of his time.

Downes was the only son of Robert Downes of Donnybrook and his wife Elizabeth Twigge; he was a grandson of Dive Downes, Bishop of Cork and Ross and his wife Catherine Fitzgerald. He was related to the influential Burgh and Foster families and, through his grandmother, to the Earl of Kildare. He graduated from the University of Dublin, was called to the Bar in 1776 and was elected a member of the Irish House of Commons for Donegal Borough in 1790. He was appointed a judge of the Court of King's Bench in 1792; on the murder of Lord Kilwarden in 1803, Downes succeeded him as Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench in Ireland.

Downes was regarded as "the acknowledged father of the law"; according to Elrington Ball, after the murder of Kilwarden it was generally agreed that only Downes was fit to succeed him.^[1] He was one of the few judges whom Daniel O'Connell could not intimidate. At the trial of John Magee for seditious libel in 1813, O'Connell's conduct of the defence was so intemperate that another barrister said that he should have been prevented from speaking; Downes said drily that he personally regretted not having prevented O'Connell from practicing law in the first place.^[2] On the other hand, Downes did let O'Connell speak at great length, and was severely criticised by the Chief Secretary for Ireland, Sir Robert Peel, for so doing.^[3]

He retired in 1822; despite his age and childlessness he accepted a peerage as Baron Downes, of Aghanville in the King's County, with a special remainder to his cousin Ulysses Burgh, the grandson of his aunt Anne Downes, who had married Thomas Burgh, and who succeeded him as second and last Baron Downes.

When he died he was buried in St Anne's Church, Dublin next to his friend and colleague William Tankerville Chamberlain.^[4]

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