William Brett, 1st Viscount Esher

{{Short description|British lawyer, judge and politician (1815–1899)}} {{Use British English|date=July 2011}} {{Use dmy dates|date=December 2020}} {{Infobox officeholder | honorific_prefix = The Right Honourable | name = The Viscount Esher | honorific_suffix = PC | image = Lord Esher I.jpg | image_size = | caption = Lord Esher by John Everett Millais. | order1 = Solicitor General for England and Wales | term_start1 = 10 February 1868 | term_end1 = 16 September 1868 | monarch1 = Victoria | prime_minister1 = Benjamin Disraeli | predecessor1 = Sir Charles Jasper Selwyn | successor1 = Sir Richard Baggallay | order2 = Master of the Rolls | term_start2 = April 1883 | term_end2 = 1897 | monarch2 = Victoria | prime_minister2 = | predecessor2 = Sir George Jessel | successor2 = Sir Nathaniel Lindley | birth_date = {{birth date text|13 August 1815}} <ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.cracroftspeerage.co.uk/esher1897.htm |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140606224630/http://www.cracroftspeerage.co.uk/online/content/esher1897.htm |archive-date=6 June 2014 |title=Esher, Viscount (UK, 1897)}}</ref> | birth_place = | death_date = {{death date and age|24 May 1899|13 August 1815}} | death_place = London, England | party = Conservative | alma_mater = King's College London <br /> Caius College, Cambridge | spouse = Eugénie Mayer | children = 3, including Reginald }}

'''William Baliol Brett, 1st Viscount Esher''', PC (13 August 1815{{snd}}24 May 1899), known as '''Sir William Brett''' between 1868 and 1883, was a British lawyer, judge, and Conservative politician. He was briefly Solicitor General under Benjamin Disraeli and then served as a justice of the Court of Common Pleas between 1868 and 1876, as a Lord Justice of Appeal between 1876 and 1883 and as Master of the Rolls. He was raised to the peerage as Baron Esher in 1885 and further honoured when he was made Viscount Esher on his retirement in 1897.

== Background and education == Brett was a son of the Reverend Joseph George Brett, of Chelsea, London, by Dorothy, daughter of George Best, of Chilston Park, Boughton Malherbe, Kent.{{Citation needed|date=December 2024}} He was educated at Westminster School, King's College London and at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge.<ref>{{acad|id=BRT835WB|name=Brett, William Baliol}}</ref> Brett rowed for Cambridge University Boat Club against Leander Club in 1837 and 1838, then in the victorious Cambridge crew against Oxford University in the 1839 Boat Race.<ref>{{cite book |title=Boating |last=Woodgate |first=Walter Bradford |author-link=Walter Bradford Woodgate |year=1888 |publisher=Longmans, Green, and Co |location=London |pages=255–256 |url=https://archive.org/stream/boatingb00woodrich#page/254/mode/2up |access-date=25 July 2011}}</ref>

== Career == Called to the Bar in 1840, Brett went to the northern circuit<ref name="eb">{{EB1911 |inline=y |wstitle=Esher, William Baliol Brett, 1st Viscount |volume=9 |page=768}}</ref> and became a Queen's Counsel in 1861.<ref>{{London Gazette |issue=22483 |date=26 February 1861 |page=792 }}</ref> On the death of Richard Cobden in 1865, he unsuccessfully contested Rochdale as a Conservative, but in an 1866 by-election, he was returned for Helston in unique circumstances. He and his opponent polled exactly the same number of votes, and the mayor, as returning officer, then gave his casting vote for the Liberal candidate. As the vote was given after four o'clock, however, an appeal was lodged, and the House of Commons allowed both members to take their seats.<ref name="eb"/>

Brett rapidly made his mark in the House, and in early 1868, he was knighted<ref>{{London Gazette |issue=23359 |date=6 March 1868 |page=1519}}</ref> and appointed Solicitor General under Benjamin Disraeli. On behalf of the Crown, he prosecuted the Fenians charged with having caused the Clerkenwell Outrage. In Parliament, he took a leading part in the promotion of bills connected with the administration of law and justice. In August 1868, he was appointed a Justice of the Court of Common Pleas.<ref>{{London Gazette |issue=23417 |date=28 August 1868 |page=4733 }}</ref> Some of his sentences in this capacity excited much criticism, notably so in the case of the Gas Stokers' Strike, when he sentenced the defendants to imprisonment for twelve months, with hard labour, which was afterwards reduced by the Home Secretary to four months.<ref name="eb"/>

On the reconstitution of the Court of Appeal in 1876, Brett was elevated to the rank of a Lord Justice of Appeal. He was sworn of the Privy Council at the same time.<ref>{{London Gazette |issue=24389 |date=1 December 1876 |page=6673}}</ref> After holding the position for seven years, he succeeded Sir George Jessel as Master of the Rolls in 1883.<ref>{{London Gazette |issue=25218 |date=3 April 1883 |page=1777 }}</ref> In 1885 he was raised to the peerage as '''Baron Esher''', ''of Esher in the County of Surrey''.<ref>{{London Gazette |issue=25493 |date=1 December 1885 |page=3426 }}</ref> He opposed the bill proposing that an accused person or his wife might give evidence in their own case and supported the bill that empowered Lords of Appeal to sit and vote after their retirement. The Solicitors Act 1888, which increased the powers of the Incorporated Law Society, owed much to his influence. In 1880, he delivered a speech in the House of Lords, deprecating the delay and expense of trials, which he regarded as having been increased by the Judicature Act 1873.<ref name="eb"/> He retired from the bench at the close of 1897, and was created '''Viscount Esher''', ''of Esher in the County of Surrey'',<ref>{{London Gazette |issue=26910 |date=12 November 1897 |page=6227}}</ref> a dignity rarely given to any judge, Lord Chancellors excepted.<ref name="eb"/>

==Judgments== *''Tamplin v James'' (1880) 15 Ch D 215 (CA), upholding a decision of Baggallay LJ in the first instance; contract law concerning the availability of specific performance for a breach of contract induced by mistake.<ref name=TLA>{{Cite encyclopedia | title = Contract - General Principles - Remedies - Specific Performance and Injunctions - Specific Performance | encyclopedia = The Laws of Australia | pages = [7.9.1450] | date = 31 August 2006 }}</ref> *''Compagnie Financiere du Pacifique v Peruvian Guano Co'' (1882) 11 QBD 55 - Established the modern test for discovery of documents. *''Heaven v Pender'' (1883) - In the obiter dicta in his judgment of the Court of Appeal, Brett MR sought to establish a general "duty of care" between parties that would have led to a tort of negligence. Such a principle was only finally accepted by English courts in 1932.<ref>*{{ cite book | pages=''pp''91–91 | title=Tort Law:Text and Materials |author1=Lunney, M. |author2=Oliphant, K. |name-list-style=amp | edition=2nd | publisher=Oxford University Press | location =Oxford | year=2003 | isbn=0-19-926055-9 }}</ref> *''Foakes v Beer'' (Brett sitting in the Court of Appeal) [1884] UKHL 1, [1881-85] All ER Rep 106, (1884) 9 App Cas 605; 54 LJQB 130; 51 LT 833; 33 WR 233 - a leading case from the House of Lords on the legal concept of consideration *''In the Arbitration between Secretary of State for Home Department and Fletcher'' (1887) - upholding a Queens bench decision supporting the authority of the Inspector of Mines to require the use of safety lamps; Bowen LJ dissenting.<ref name = lords>{{cite journal | journal = The Law Reports, Queens Bench Division | title = In the Arbitration between Secretary of State for Home Department and Fletcher | volume = XVIII | year = 1887| pages = 340–346 }}</ref> *''Filburn v People's Palace and Aquarium Co Ltd'' (1890) was a case that imposed strict liability upon owners of wild animals for harm caused by them.<ref>Henderson, J.A. et al. ''The Torts Process, Seventh Edition.'' Aspen Publishers, New York, NY: 2007, p. 424</ref> *''British South Africa Co v Companhia de Moçambique'' [1893] AC 602 (Esher sitting in the Court of Appeal) - Esher dissented from the Court of Appeal decision of Fry LJ and Lopes LJ; the House of Lords overturned their decision and by so doing established the ''Mozambique rule'', a common law rule in private international law that renders actions relating to title in foreign land, the right to possession of foreign land, and trespass to foreign land non-justiciable in common law jurisdictions.<ref>{{cite web| url = http://www.lawlink.nsw.gov.au/lrc.nsf/pages/R63CHP2| title = Report 63 (1988) – Jurisdiction of Local Courts Over Foreign Land.| publisher = Law Reform Commission, New South Wales| date = 30 May 2001| access-date = 2008-09-01}}</ref> *''The Satanita'' [1897] AC 59 - Contract law case atypical of the conventional offer & acceptance pattern seen in English law. Brett's decision at appeal affirmed by the House of Lords. * ''Chatenay v Brazilian Submarine Telegraph Company Ltd'' [1891] QB 79 - choice of law in relation to transactions under foreign powers of attorney

==Family== thumb|Tomb, Christ Church, Esher Lord Esher married Eugénie Mayer (1814–1904) in 1850.<ref name="ODNB">Hedley, S. (2004) "[http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/3350 Brett, William Baliol, first Viscount Esher (1815–1899)]", ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, accessed 20 November 2007 {{ODNBsub}}</ref> She was the daughter of Finette and Lazare Mayer, and the step-daughter of Lt Col John Gurwood, the editor of Wellington's Dispatches. They had two sons, Reginald, and Eugène,<ref name="ODNB"/> and a daughter Violet, wife of William Humble Dudley Ward and mother of William Dudley Ward.{{Citation needed|date=December 2024}} Lord Esher died in London in May 1899, aged eighty-three, and was succeeded by his eldest son, Reginald.<ref name="eb"/>

==Arms== {{Infobox COA wide |image={{center|130px|centrecentre|150px}} |escutcheon = Quarterly 1st & 4th Gules within an orle of crosses botonny fitchée Or a lion rampant of the last holding in the dexter forepaw a fasces erect Proper 2nd per pale Or and Gules three leopard's faces counterchanged 3rd Azure three bears' heads couped Argent muzzled Gules. |crest = A lion passant Gules charged on the shoulder with a cross botonny fitchéee Or and holding in the dexter forepaw a fasces Proper. |supporters = Dexter a boar sinister a lion both Sable and each charged on the shoulder with a cross botonny fitchée Or and holding between the paws a fasces erect Proper. |motto = Vicimus <ref>{{cite book|title=Burke's Peerage |date=1914}}</ref>}}

==References== {{reflist}}

==External links== {{Wikiquote}} {{Commons category|William Baliol Brett}} * {{Hansard-contribs | mr-william-brett | the Viscount Esher }}

{{s-start}} {{s-par|uk}} {{succession box | title = Member of Parliament for Helston | years = 1866 – 1868 | before = Robert Campbell | after = Adolphus William Young }} {{s-legal}} {{succession box | title = Solicitor General | years = February 1868{{snd}}September 1868 | before = Sir Charles Jasper Selwyn | after = Sir Richard Baggallay }} {{succession box | title = Master of the Rolls | years = 1883{{snd}}1897 | before = Sir George Jessel | after = Sir Nathaniel Lindley }} {{s-reg|uk}} {{s-new|rows=2|creation}} {{s-ttl|title=Viscount Esher|years=1897–1899}} {{s-aft|rows=2|after=Reginald Brett}} {{s-ttl|title=Baron Esher|years=1885–1899}} {{s-end}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Esher, William Baliol Brett, 1st Viscount}} Category:1815 births Category:1899 deaths Category:People educated at Westminster School, London Category:Alumni of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge William Category:Cambridge University Boat Club rowers Category:British male rowers Category:19th-century English judges Category:Members of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom Category:UK MPs 1865–1868 Category:UK MPs who were granted peerages Category:Conservative Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies Category:Viscounts in the Peerage of the United Kingdom Category:Solicitors general for England and Wales Category:Masters of the Rolls Category:Justices of the common pleas Category:Knights Bachelor Category:Common Pleas Division judges Category:Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for Helston Category:Peers of the United Kingdom created by Queen Victoria