Hardinge Giffard, 1st Earl of Halsbury

Hardinge Stanley Giffard, 1st Earl of Halsbury (3 September 1823 - 11 December 1921) was a leading barrister, politician and government minister, serving as Solicitor General for England and Wales and Lord Chancellor of Great Britain. His lasting legacy was the compilation of a complete digest of "Laws of England" (1905-1916), a major reference work published in many volumes and often called simply "Halsbury's". "Halsbury's Laws" was followed by a second multiple-volume reference work in 1929, "Halsbury's Statutes", and later by "Halsbury's Statutory Instruments".

Hardinge Giffard was the third son of Stanley Lees Giffard, editor of the "Standard" newspaper, and was born in London. He was educated at Merton College, Oxford, and was called to the bar at the Inner Temple in 1850, joining the North Wales and Chester circuit. Afterwards he had a large practise at the central criminal court and the Middlesex sessions, and he was for several years junior prosecuting counsel to the Treasury. He was engaged in most of the celebrated trials of his time, including the Overend and Gurney and the Tichborne cases. He became Queen's Counsel in 1865, and a bencher of the Inner Temple.

Giffard twice contested Cardiff in the Conservative interest, in 1868 and 1874, but he was still without a seat in the House of Commons when he was appointed Solicitor General by Disraeli in 1875 and received the honour of knighthood. In 1877 he succeeded in obtaining a seat, when he was returned for Launceston, which borough he continued to represent until his elevation to the peerage in 1885.

He was then created Baron Halsbury, of Halsbury in the County of Devon, and appointed Lord Chancellor, thus forming a remarkable exception to the rule that no criminal lawyer ever reaches the woolsack. He resumed the position in 1886 and held it until 1892 and again from 1895 to 1905, his tenure of the office, broken only by the brief Liberal ministries of 1886 and 1892-1895, being longer than that of any Lord Chancellor since Lord Eldon. In 1898 he was created Earl of Halsbury and Viscount Tiverton, of Tiverton in the County of Devon. Among Conservative Lord Chancellors Lord Halsbury must always hold a high place, his grasp of legal principles and mastery in applying them being pre-eminent among the judges of his day.

During the crisis over the Parliament Act of 1911, Halsbury was one of the principal leaders of the rebel faction of Tory peers—labelled the "Ditchers"—that resolved on all out opposition to the government's bill whatever happened. At a meeting of Conservative peers on the 21 July of that year, Halsbury shouted out "I will divide even if I am alone". As Halsbury left the meeting a reporter asked him what was going to happen. Halsbury immediately replied: "Government by a Cabinet controlled by rank socialists". [George Dangerfield, "The Strange Death of Liberal England" (Serif, 2001), p. 54.]

Halsbury was also President of the Royal Society of Literature, Grand Warden of English Freemasons, and High Steward of the University of Oxford.

References

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*1911