Richard Webster, 1st Viscount Alverstone

{{Short description|British barrister, politician and judge (1842–1915)}}

{{Infobox officeholder

| name = The Viscount Alverstone

| office = Lord Chief Justice of England

| order =

| honorific-prefix = The Right Honourable

| honorific-suffix = {{postnominals|country=GBR|size=100%|GCMG|PC|FRS}}

| image = Portrait of Richard Webster, 1st Viscount Alverstone.jpg

| alt = The Viscount Alverstone

| caption =

| monarch = Queen Victoria
Edward VII
George V

| predecessor = The Lord Russell of Killowen

| successor = The Earl of Reading

| footnotes =

| signature =

| signature_alt =

| monarch2 = Queen Victoria

| office2 = Master of the Rolls

| predecessor2 = Sir Nathaniel Lindley

| primeminister2 = The Marquess of Salisbury

| party = Conservative

| successor2 = Sir Archibald Levin Smith

| birth_date = 22 December 1842

| birth_place = Holborn, London
United Kingdom

| death_date = {{Death date and age|1915|12|15|1842|12|22|df=yes}}

| death_place = Cranleigh, Surrey
United Kingdom

| nationality = British

| spouse =

| relations =

| children =

| residence =

| alma_mater = Trinity College, Cambridge

| occupation = Barrister, judge

| religion =

| imagesize = 200px

| term_start = 24 October 1900

| term_end = 21 October 1913

| term_start2 = 9 May 1900

| term_end2 = 24 October 1900

| order3 = Attorney General for England

| office3 =

| term_start3 = 27 June 1885

| term_end3 = 28 January 1886

| monarch3 = Queen Victoria

| primeminister3 = The Marquess of Salisbury

| predecessor3 = Sir Henry James

| successor3 = Sir Charles Russell

| term_start4 = 5 August 1886

| term_end4 = 11 August 1892

| monarch4 = Queen Victoria

| primeminister4 = The Marquess of Salisbury

| predecessor4 = Sir Charles Russell

| successor4 = Sir Charles Russell

| term_start5 = 8 July 1895

| term_end5 = 7 May 1900

| monarch5 = Queen Victoria

| primeminister5 = The Marquess of Salisbury

| predecessor5 = Sir Robert Reid

| successor5 = Sir Robert Finlay

| restingplace = West Norwood Cemetery
Lambeth, London
United Kingdom

| restingplacecoordinates =

| birthname = Richard Everard Webster

}}

Richard Everard Webster, 1st Viscount Alverstone, {{postnominals|country=GBR|size=100%|sep=,|GCMG|PC|FRS}} (22 December 1842 – 15 December 1915) was a British barrister, politician and judge who served in many high political and judicial offices.

Background and education

Webster was the second son of Thomas Webster QC. He was educated at King's College School and Charterhouse, and Trinity College, Cambridge.{{acad|id=WBSR860RE|name=Webster, Richard Everard}} He was well known as an athlete in his earlier years, having represented his university in the first Inter-Varsity steeplechase and as a runner. As such, the Cambridge University Alverstone Club is named in his honour, and makes a pilgrimage to Alverstone, Isle of Wight, every 4 years.

His interest in cricket and foot-racing was maintained in later life. He refereed races for the early Amateur Athletic Club and set rules for long jump and shot put. He was President of Surrey County Cricket Club from 1895 until his death, and of the Marylebone Cricket Club in 1903.{{cite book|last1=Haigh|first1=Gideon|title=Peter The Lord's Cat and Other Unexpected Obituaries from Wisden|date=2006|publisher=John Wisden & Co|location=London, Eng|isbn=1845131630|pages=7}}

Legal, judicial and political career

File:Richard Webster, 1st Viscount Alverstone.jpg

Webster was called to the bar in 1868, and became QC only ten years afterwards. His practice was chiefly in commercial, railway and patent cases until (June 1885) he was appointed Attorney-General in the Conservative Government in the exceptional circumstances of never having been Solicitor-general, and not at the time occupying a seat in parliament. As Attorney General Webster was prosecuting in the Eliza Armstrong case, in the autumn of 1885, a major scandal widely reported in the press, involving a child supposedly bought for prostitution for the purpose of exposing the evils of white slavery. It led to the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885. He was elected for Launceston in the following month, and in November exchanged this seat for the Isle of Wight, which he continued to represent until his elevation to the House of Lords. Except under the brief Gladstone administration of 1886, and the Gladstone-Rosebery cabinet of 1892–1895, Sir Richard Webster was Attorney-General from 1885 to 1900.

In 1890 he was leading counsel for The Times in the Parnell inquiry; in 1893 he represented Great Britain in the Bering Sea arbitration; in 1898 he discharged the same function in the matter of the boundary between British Guiana and Venezuela.

In the House of Commons, and outside it, his political career was prominently associated with church work; and his speeches were distinguished for gravity and earnestness. In July 1885, he was made a Knight Bachelor.{{London Gazette| issue=25490 |page=3239 |date=14 July 1885}} In December 1893, he was appointed to the Order of St Michael and St George as a Knight Grand Cross.{{London Gazette| issue=26465 |page=7183 |date=8 December 1893}} In January 1900 he was created a Baronet,{{London Gazette| issue=27157 |page=512 |date=26 January 1900}} but in May the same year succeeded Sir Nathaniel Lindley as Master of the Rolls, being raised to the peerage as Baron Alverstone, of Alverstone in the County of Southampton{{London Gazette |issue=27202 |date=15 June 1900 |page=3752 }} and sworn of the Privy Council,{{London Gazette |issue=27192 |date=15 May 1900 |page=3066 }} and in October of the same year he was elevated to the office of Lord Chief Justice upon the death of Lord Russell of Killowen. He presided over some notable trials of the era including Hawley Harvey Crippen. Although popular, he was not considered an outstanding judge; one colleague wrote after his death that "the reports will be searched in vain for judgments of his that are valuable".

He received the honorary degree Doctor of Laws (LL.D.) from the University of Edinburgh in April 1902,{{Cite newspaper The Times |title=University intelligence |date=12 April 1902 |page=12 |issue=36740}} and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society later the same year.{{cite web |publisher=Royal Society |title=Fellows 1660–2007 |url=https://royalsociety.org/~/media/Royal_Society_Content/about-us/fellowship/Fellows1660-2007.pdf |access-date=9 September 2016}}{{cite web| url = http://www2.royalsociety.org/DServe/dserve.exe?dsqIni=Dserve.ini&dsqApp=Archive&dsqCmd=Show.tcl&dsqDb=Persons&dsqPos=3&dsqSearch=%28%28text%29%3D%27webster%27%29 |title = Library and Archive catalogue|publisher = Royal Society|access-date = 2012-02-25}} In late 1902 he was in South Africa as part of a commission looking into the use of martial law sentences during the Second Boer War.{{Cite newspaper The Times |title=Martial Law in South Africa |date=9 October 1902 |page=3 |issue=36894}}

In 1903 during the Alaska boundary dispute he was one of the members of the Boundary Commission. Against the wishes of the Canadians it was his swing vote that settled the matter, roughly splitting the disputed territory. As a result, he became extremely unpopular in Canada.

He retired in 1913, and was created Viscount Alverstone, of Alverstone, Isle of Wight in the County of Southampton.{{London Gazette |issue=28783 |date=19 December 1913 |page=9337 }}

In 1914, Webster published Recollections of Bar and Bench.{{cite web|url=https://archive.org/details/recollectionsofb0000unse/page/n5/mode/2up?ref=ol&view=theater |title=Recollections of Bar and Bench |accessdate=2023-05-21}}

Personal life

File:Lord Alverstone Vanity Fair 15 January 1913.jpg, 1913]]

Webster married in 1872 Louisa Mary Calthrop, daughter of William Charles Calthrop. She died in March 1877. They had one son and one daughter. Their only son, the Honourable Arthur Harold Webster (1874–1902) died childless in August 1902, aged 28, after an operation for appendicitis.{{Cite newspaper The Times |title=Obituary |date=9 August 1902 |page=5 |issue=36842}} The Arthur Webster Hospital, opened in 1905, was presented to the town of Shanklin, Isle of Wight by Lord Alverstone in memory of his son. The building is still in use as the Arthur Webster Clinic.

He commissioned the architect Edward Blakeway I'Anson to build Winterfold House near Cranleigh in the Surrey Hills in 1886, in a classic late Victorian style, and laid out grounds with flowering trees and shrubs.

Lord Alverstone died at Cranleigh, Surrey, on 15 December 1915,{{cite EB1922 |wstitle=Alverstone, Richard Everard Webster, 1st Baron |volume=30 |page=117}} aged 72 and was buried at West Norwood Cemetery under a Celtic cross. His peerages became extinct on his death.

Arms

{{Infobox COA wide

|image = File:Coronet of a British Viscount.svg File:Alverstone Escutcheon.png

|escutcheon = Azure two Pallets Or five Swans in cross Argent between four Annulets Gold

|crest = A Swan's Head erased Argent encircled by an Annulet Azure and holding in the beak a like Annulet

|supporters = On either side a Seal proper gorged with a Chain of Annulets interlaced Or suspended therefrom an Escutcheon Azure charged with a Swan Argent

|motto =

}}

References

{{EB1911|wstitle=Alverstone, Richard Everard Webster, 1st Baron}}
Wisden Cricketers' Almanack, 1916 edition: obituary.

External links

{{Hansard-contribs | sir-richard-webster | the Viscount Alverstone}}
{{cite book |last=Hesilrige |first=Arthur G. M. |date=1921| title=Debrett's Peerage and Titles of courtesy| url=https://archive.org/details/debrettspeeraget00unse/page/38 | location=London |publisher=London: Dean & son, limited|page=38}}
[http://www.artoftheprint.com/artistpages/vanity_fair_thelordchiefjusticeofenglandlordalverstone.htm Vanity Fair caricature 1913]

{{succession box

| title = Member of Parliament for Launceston

| years = 1885–1885

| before = Sir Hardinge Giffard

| after = Thomas Dyke Acland

}}

{{succession box

| title = Member of Parliament for Isle of Wight

| years = 1885–1900

| before = Evelyn Ashley

| after = J. E. B. Seely

}}