[Sir Courtenay Peregrine]. English lawyer and politician; born at Kingsbridge, Devon, on the 12th of June 1841; graduated at Balliol College, Oxford, where he was awarded several important scholarships and first class honors; elected a fellow of Balliol (1864); called to the bar (1867); practiced as a parliamentary and equity draftsman and conveyancer; counsel to the Education Department (1879–82); legal member of the Indian Viceregal Council (1882–86); acting governor-general (1886); author of the Bengal Tenancy Bill, a measure which affected favorably the interests of sixty millions of the Empress’s subjects; permanent assistant Parliamentary counsel of the Treasury (1886); knighted in 1895. He drafted the Ilbert Bill, conferring jurisdiction over Europeans on the native judiciary, which caused much indignation in India, It was withdrawn in deference to popular opinion.
