OLD BAILEY BARRISTERS

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 124, 26 May 1923, Page 21

OLD BAILEY BARRISTERS

SURVIVORS OF A FAMOUS ■- GROUP. The death in England of Sir Charles Gill, K.C., reduces to two the number of Old Bailey barristers who made name, and fame, and fortune in Victorian days. The survivors of a, brilliant group are now Sir H. Poland, aged' 93 years, who still suns himself at times in Temple Gardens; and Mr. Justice Avory, who. succeeded Gill as senior counsel for the Treasury 'in 1899. Montague Williams was another legal star in that firmament. - Gill finally established himself by outfacing Sir Charles Russell, afterwards Lord Russell of Killowen, Lord Chief Justice from 1894, who, as counsel, was accustomed to bully everybody, the Bench included. Gill, when against him in the Marks libel case, took Russell by the nose firmly, in two sentences. The first, to the jury, was, "I think it only right to inform you, gentlemen of the : ]ury, that my learned friend, Sir Charles | Russell, yawns when I make aii. important point in my case, to suggest to you .that it is of :np importance." Russell | jumped .up, furiously angry, to' protest against "this impertinence." "May I ask," Gill said, calmly, "if Sir Charts Russell claims the monopoly of impertinence in this Court?". Incidentally, Gill won this case, and henceforth he met Russell in the Courts on equal terms.