Transcript

of

Robert Porrett Collier, Lord Monkswell [Obituary]

Trans. Devon. Assoc., 1887, Vol XIX, pp.44-46.

by

Rev. W. Harpley

Prepared by Michael Steer

Lord Monkswell was lawyer, politician and judge. A more complete and well-illustrated biography of this important Victorian political figure is given in Wikipedia. His obituary was read at the Association’s July 1887 Plympton meeting. The article, from a copy of a rare and much sought-after journal can be downloaded from the Internet Archive. Google has sponsored the digitisation of books from several libraries. These books, on which copyright has expired, are available for free educational and research use, both as individual books and as full collections to aid researchers.

Robert Porrett Collier - Lord Monkswell - was born in 1817 at Plymouth, and was the son of the late Mr. John Collier, of Grimstone, Horrabridge, who was M.P. for Plymouth from 1832 to 1842, by Emma, fourth daughter of the late Robert Porrett, of North Hill House, Plymouth. He received his early education at the Plymouth Grammar School; he afterwards proceeded to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he graduated B.A. in 1841. Three years later he married a daughter of William Rose, Esq., of Wolston Heath, Warkwickshire.

In the same year that he took his degree Mr. Collier made his début as a politician, coining forward as a Radical candidate for the borough of Launceston in opposition to Sir Henry Hardinge, then Chief Secretary for Ireland, and afterwards Governor-General of India. He withdrew before the polling -day, and made no further attempt to enter Parliament until about eleven years afterwards. He was called to the Bar at the Inner Temple in 1843, and soon after he was appointed Recorder of Penzance. His rise at the Bar was not rapid, the forensic gifts which he possessed not being brilliant or perceptible at first blush. He joined the Western Circuit, and there a fair amount of work fell to his share, and he became one of the acknowledged leaders of the circuit He was nominated a Q.C., and received a patent of precedence in 1854. In 1852 he made a second attempt to enter Parliament - this time for his native town - and had to undergo the ordeal of a very severe contest. He was successful, and continued to represent the borough of Plymouth without interruption until 1871. In Parliament Mr. Collier laboured hard, and was always listened to with respect when he spoke, as he generally did, on legal questions. One of the first speeches which drew to him attention was a motion which he made in 1855, during the Crimean War, with reference to trade with Russia. The force and skill with which he maintained his paradoxical thesis - that the blockade of the Russian ports injured the allies much more than the enemy - won him high compliments. In 1859 he was appointed Judge-Advocate of the Fleet and Counsel to the Admiralty. Prior to that he introduced into Parliament a bill for transferring the testamentary jurisdiction of the Ecclesiastical Courts to a civil tribunal, the main provisions of which were adopted in the Act by which the Probate Court was subsequently established. He also proposed and carried a resolution in favour of limited liability in partnerships, which became the basis of subsequent legislation on this subject By his labours in the House of Commons, even more than by his success at the Bar, he earned the right to the legal honours which towards the end of his Parliamentary life fell to him in abundance.

In October, 1883, Mr. Collier was made Solicitor-General, which office he held until the defeat of the Russell-Gladstone Administration in 1866. As Solicitor-General it fell to him to conduct several important State prosecutions; but far more weighty duties were imposed upon him by the American War, and the difficult and delicate international questions to which it gave rise. In 1868 Sir Robert Collier was appointed Attorney-General, an appointment which at first created some surprise, but which was fully justified by the admirable manner in which, during three years of arduous work, he filled that post' He secured in a rarely equalled degree the confidence and esteem of the House of Commons, and left there a reputation which few law officers have acquired.

In November, 1871, he was appointed, under ever-memorable circumstances, a paid member of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, By the Privy Council Act of that year four paid members - two Indian judges, and two judges of the Superior Courts at Westminster - were to be appointed. In order to qualify Sir Robert legally for the post he was appointed Puisne Judge of the Court of Common Pleas for two days. The transaction was regarded by some persons of legal eminence to be a perversion of the statute, and a bitter and heated controversy ensued ; but in the whole course of it no one cast a doubt on Sir Robert Collier's fitness for the offce. On all hands it was admitted that he was well qualified for it, and those who were foremost in denouncing Mr. Gladstone's and Lord Hatherley's share in the transaction acknowledged ungrudgingly his talents, his experience, and his 8ucces3 in every public office which he had filled. Nor did he disappoint those who predicted that he would prove an excellent judge - some of his judgments being admirable expositions of legal principles, and all of them expressed with a clearness far from common on the bench. In 1885 Sir Robert was created a Peer under the title of Baron Monkswell.

Among his published works are The Railway Clauses, Companies Clauses, and Lands Clauses Consolidation Acts, with Notes: together with an Appendix treating of the Formation of a Railway Company, the Mode of Passing a Bill through Parliament, &c,, and an Addenda of Statutes and Forms, 1815; A Letter of Reform of the Superior Courts of Common Law to the Right Hon. Lord John Russell; and The Oration of Demosthenes on the Crown, translated 1885. He was an amateur painter of great ability, and many of his pictures have been exhibited at the Royal Academy. In 1876 he became a member of this Association, and three years later he was elected to fill the office of President. His introductory address to the meeting at Ilfracombe in 1879 dealt mainly with the progress and development of the art of painting.

He died suddenly at Grasse, near Cannes, on Wednesday, 27th October, 1886, whither he had repaired, on the advice of Sir James Clarke, for the purpose of spending the winter.