[1st Baron]. Irish lawyer and politician, born in Dublin on the 4th of September 1837, and educated at Trinity College, Dublin. He was called to the Irish bar in 1860, and in 1872 became a Q.C. In 1875 he was elected for Dublin University as a Conservative, and in 1877 became attorney-general for Ireland in Disraeli’s Government. In 1885 he was made Lord Chancellor of Ireland with a seat in the Cabinet, and raised to the peerage, holding the same office in the Conservative Governments of 1886–92 and 1895–1905. Lord Ashbourne took a prominent part in the early negotiations for land purchase in Ireland. He died in London on the 22nd of May 1913, and was succeeded as and baron by his eldest son, William Gibson (1868–1942).
