The lawyers
OLD BAILEY DEFENCE BARRISTERS
'The disreputable conduct of Old Bailey barristers was a byword throughout the early Victorian period. It earned them such a bad reputation that, when William Ballantine was black-balled at the Reform Club, it occasioned no surprise: “An Old Bailey barrister would be black-balled even if he were Jesus Christ.” The commonly held view was that the Central Criminal Court was one where “the ruffianism of the prisoners is now and then surpassed by the ruffianism of the advocates”, and it was not until the 1860s that the position improved significantly.' (J.R. Lewis (1982) The Victorian Bar. London: Robert Hale, 24)
Charles Wilkins William Ballantine John Humffreys Parry
Illustrated London News 13 April 1844 Vanity Fair caricature 13 December 1873
Charles Wilkins was a defence lawyer with a reputation for turning juries with the power of his rhetoric. He learned his craft on the stage and in low-level political oration, and eventually he made his name as a barrister on the Northern Circuit of England. He had a taste for politics, wine and women and was suspected of spending his brief fees as soon as he received them (or perhaps before, in expectation). The actor Charles Kemble, said that he also fell into the hands of moneylenders. Wilkins set up in London in 1840. Later, he took one of the Castelnau Villas built in Barnes in 1842-43, just south of Hammersmith Bridge which had opened in 1827. He was very effective in straightforward cases but less so when the facts and legal issues were complex. He was a kind and generous man, devoted to his actress wife, but thin-skinned about his humble beginnings and condescending attitudes to men and women of the theatre. It was said that he left the North-West because of such comments, but it was a good move and he was very successful for a few years.
William Ballantine was also a defence lawyer and he too had stage experience. He was ‘idle and pleasure-loving, generous and extravagant to a degree… and … dissipated more than one fortune earned at the Bar. … neither marriage nor fatherhood caused him to lose his love of whist or women, and he spent much time in the West End. He was reckoned to have the airy fecklessness of a Micawber, the humour of Rabelais…’ Ballantine died without funds, supported by his son, in ‘virtual exile in Boulogne, where his English creditors could not reach him.’
(J.R. Lewis (1982) The Victorian Bar. London: Robert Hale, 63-65, and see 32-34 and 107)
Lewis writes in The Victorian Bar:
'The barrister in those early years knew well that he could acquire fame through his performance in court. And performance was the word. There had long been an affinity between stage and bar – actors and barristers often went to the same training school, a famous one being run by an ex-actor called John Cooper. The Northern Circuit had a long-established tradition of putting on plays; … Several leading counsel, such as Charles Wilkins, Edwin James and Ballantine claimed earlier experience of the boards. But their best performances were reserved for the courtroom.' (J.R. Lewis (1982) 13)
John Humffreys Parry had a more settled life than Wilkins or Ballantine. He was married twice - because of the death of his first wife. He had two sons, one of whom became a judge and the other an actor. He was junior prosecution counsel in the notorious Tichborne Claimant trial. Like Wilkins and Ballantine, he eventually became a Serjeant - a recognition similar to Queen's Counsel, which has now died out.
PROSECUTORS
Sir Frederick Pollock QC William Clarkson (Sir) William Bodkin
Francis Grant (1803–1878), Huntingdon Illustrated London News Middlesex Guildhall Art Collection, Town Hall , ArtUK 13 April 1844 ArtUK (UK Supreme Court)
Sir Frederick Pollock QC was an eminent barrister who served as Attorney-General from 1834-1835 and 1841 to 1844, when he was appointed to a senior judge's role, Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer. He held the job until 1868.
William Clarkson was disliked by Ballantine (who was not always reliable):
'WILLIAM CLARKSON enjoyed a large business at the Central Court. He was not without ability of a certain kind, which was greatly assisted by his connection by marriage with a respectable firm of solicitors. Loud-voiced and swaggering, with one undeviating form of cross-examination, whatever might be the position or character of the witness, and that the very reverse of gentle or refined, he did much to maintain the opprobrium attaching to those who practiced at the court. He was by no means considerate to his juniors, but succumbed at once to those capable of resistance. My recollection does not furnish me with any circumstances in his career, professionally or privately, that I can record to his advantage.'
(Mr Serjeant William Ballantine (1882) Some Experiences of a Barrister’s Life. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 83)
Clarkson was married, and fathered 7 sons and a daughter. He died in 1856, in Brighton, aged 63, after an operation to relieve a carbuncle on his neck.
William Bodkin, later Sir William, was a successful barrister, called to the Bar in 1824. He worked initially on criminal cases on the Home Circuit (mainly Middlesex, Westminster and Kent) and later the Old Bailey. He acted as counsel for HM Treasury for a number of years. As Conservative MP for Rochester from 1841, his main interest was in the poor laws, but he lost his seat in 1847 because he supported Peel's position on free trade. He was appointed an assistant judge in 1859 and knighted in 1867. He was twice married and had a son and a daughter.
FRESHFIELDS
The law firm which later became known informally as Freshfields acted for the Bank of England - and still does. In 1801, James Joseph William Freshfield (1775-1864) was invited to join a law firm, Winter & Kaye which acted for the Bank. Like previous partners, he was appointed joint solicitor to the Bank of England in 1808, serving until 1840. James junior was born in 1801, destined to be a key witness in the Will Forgeries cases. He also became joint solicitor to the Bank, as did his younger brothers Charles Kaye Freshfield (born 1808) and Henry (born 1814).
James Freshfield by Francis Holl, after George Richmond stipple engraving, (1846) NPG D38434 © National Portrait Gallery, London; and A View of the Bank of England, Daniel Havell after Thomas Hosmer Shepherd, (1816) Rijksmuseum, public domain.[1]
Freshfields themselves captioned the image of the Bank as: "Threadneedle Street, home to the firm’s headquarters 1743–63 and the Bank of England, Freshfields’ first client".[2] The building in the painting was demolished and a new one erected in the early 20th century.
[2] Freshfields Bruckhaus Beringer (2020) Our Story. Assembled by Crispin Hain-Cole, acknowledging Judy Slinn (A History of Freshfields, published in 1984) and the publisher CH Beck (A History of Thinking Ahead – 175 years of Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer in Germany, published in 2015).