British jurist, born at Brechin, Forfarshire, on the 11th of August 1846, and educated at the universities of Aberdeen and Edinburgh. He was called to the bar at the Middle Temple in 1873 and for some years was counsel to the Board of Trade and the London Chamber of Commerce. In 1889 he was made a Master of the Supreme Court and in 1912 was appointed King’s Remembrancer. His knowledge of the science of law, both ancient and modern, was wide and exhaustive. He was Quain professor of comparative law in the university of London (1901), president of the Society of Public Teachers of Law (1912–13), a member of several royal commissions and editor for many years of the Journal of Comparative Legislation and International Law. In 1913 he was elected a fellow of the British Academy and in 1914 was created K.C.B. Besides editing the State Trials (1887), The Civil Judicial Statistics (from 1894), the Criminal Judicial Statistics (from 1900) and Smith’s so Mercantile Law, he published works on the subject of capture at sea and the law of master and servant, and was the author of many papers on questions of international law. He was also for to forty years an influential leader-writer for The Times. He died in London on the 17th of March 1921.
