FAMOUS JUDGE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22433, 1 June 1936, Page 9

FAMOUS JUDGE

DEATH IN ENGLAND

LORD DARLING'S CAREEH

WITTICISMS FROM BENCH By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright LONDON, May. 29 The death has occurred of "Lord Darling, famous as the wittiest Judge on the English Bench and well know a as an author and poet. He was B6 years old. The late Lord Darling was born on December 6. 1849, the son of Mr. Charles Darling, of Langham Hall, Essex, and received his call to the Bar in 1874. He joined the Oxford Circuit and became Queen'a Counsel in 18£o. Turning to politics, he twice fought Sir Charles Russell, afterward Lord Russell of Killowen, in South Hackney, and, though unsuccessful, he materially reduced the great advocate's majority. At a by-election in Deptford in 1888 he won the seat against Mr. Wilfrid Blunt and retained it until his elevation to the Bench in 1897. , In the House the member for Deptford showed that he was afraid of nobody and his satire was sometimes brilliant. It was, however, a surprise both to the House of Commons and to the legal profession when the lato Earl of Halsbury appointed him a Judge of the King's Bench. His work on the Bench soon confounded the critics;, for Mr. Justice Darling proved to be not only, as 'everyone knew, a man of wide culture and sparkling humour, but a sound lawyer, who knew his own mind and never hesitated to express his Opinions. Lord Darling'! work in the Court of Criminal Appeal has been justly valued, and when he presided over such a momentous case as the appeal against Roger Casement's conviction he was

recognised as the strong president of' a strong Court. In the earlier years of the war, when the Earl of Reading was frequently absent from the Court® on business of State, Mr. Justice Dai> ling, as the senior Judge of the King' 1 a Bench, filled the Lord Chief Justice's place and his services in that capacity were fittingly honoured by a summons to the Privy Council. He resigned his office as Judge on April 20, 1926. Few members of the English justiciary have made themselves as well known as Lord . Darling. In spite of protest he continued never to neglect c-he op- . portunity during his administration of justice of a witticism to brighten the often heavy legal atmosphere. Although his Court often was the arena for the plav of delicate wit and at times for the delivery of allocutions on general principles, yet his most sever* critics could not pretend that the administration of justice suffered at his hands, and as a learned counsel said: "Those who have seen him over-many years conducting cases know that he makes brilliant use of Ilia wit to concentrate attention on vital points and to put irrelevancies to confusion." A book of witty epigrams, entitled "Scintillae Juris," marked the beginning of Lord Darling's, literary life and was published in 1877. Since tha;a he has written several books, including "Meditations in the Tea Room," "Seria Ludo," "On the Oxford Circuit and other Verses," "A Pensioner's Circuit" and "Autumnal Rimes." The last book was published in 1933.