CHAPTER XI. JUDICIAL WORK.
I was placed on the Liverpool Borough Bench of Magistrates in 1873; on the Lancashire County Bench in 1882; on the Cheshire County Bench in 1900; and was made a Deputy-Lieutenant for Lancashire in 1902.
In 1900 Mr. Aspinall Tobin, on behalf of the Lancashire County Bench, invited me to be nominated as the deputy-chairman of Quarter Sessions. Lord Derby had retired from the chair, and Mr. Hugh Perkins had taken his place, therefore a deputy-chairman was wanted.
In accepting this invitation, I decided if elected to this important position to devote myself to the study of the criminal law, and to qualify myself as a magistrate, as far as a layman could do so. My spare time for several years was spent in reading the law of evidence and criminal law, and I also learnt a great deal from my chairman, who was a very painstaking magistrate, and who very kindly gave me much good advice. Mr. Perkins retired in 1894 and I was appointed chairman, and became the only lay chairman in Lancashire, the other three chairmen being all Queen's counsel. I was also elected chairman of the County Bench and of the Licensing Justices.
We had eight sessions in our court in each year, and this with the licensing work kept us very busy on several occasions. The sessions in those days lasted seven and eight days, and once even ten days.
The appeals from the decisions of the City Justices on licensing questions were very numerous; at one sessions we heard thirty-eight appeals, and as in most cases they involved the loss of the license these appeals were fought with great vigour, and Queen's counsel were generally engaged in their conduct.
Lord Mersey and the Honourable Justices Walton, Pickford, and Horridge, practised at our Quarter Sessions. I was gratified to receive a letter from one of these learned judges saying that what he knew of the rules of evidence had been mainly acquired in our court. Quarter sessions may be termed the nursery of the Bar. Young men get their first briefs, called "soups," at quarter sessions, and are naturally anxious to air their knowledge of the law, but many have to learn that the theory and the practice of the law are not quite the same, and that the application of the theory can only be obtained by practical experience in court, and this more particularly applies to the rules of evidence.
In addition to the judges named many eminent King's counsel have made their first start at our Quarter Sessions. I can recall the names of Messrs. McConnell, K.C., Steel, K.C., Collingwood Hope, K.C., W. F. Taylor, K.C., Alfred Tobin, K.C., and F. E. Smith, K.C., M.P.
For fifteen years we had no deputy-chairman of Quarter Sessions, which made my position somewhat arduous, as I could not absent myself from my post. In the end my old friend, Mr. W. Scott Barrett, the chairman of the County Council, was appointed my deputy, and a better selection could not have been made.
No part of my judicial work gave me more anxiety than the licensing appeals. One naturally felt great sympathy with the City Justices in their desire to reduce the drinking facilities which had been the cause of so much misery and wretchedness in Liverpool, but at the same time the scales of justice had to be held evenly. Whatever our decisions were, we felt they would meet with severe criticism; but this did not deter us from doing what we considered to be our duty, though we knew that our decisions might involve in many cases serious pecuniary loss and hardship. I am happy to think that our conduct of this very difficult business gave satisfaction, both to the public and to the licensees.
My experience on the bench has not been fruitful in incidents, although one day when sitting at Petty Sessions in the city a lame woman was charged with breaking a window by throwing her crutch through it. The police evidently apprehended that she might use her crutch as a weapon while standing for her trial in the dock, for she had a bad character, and they carefully surrounded her; but she was too clever for them, and managed to hurl her crutch with great force at the Bench. Fortunately, it fell short and dropped harmlessly upon the clerk's chair, which was happily vacant.
At Petty Sessions in 1889 Mr. Scott Barrett sat with me to hear the charge against Mrs. Maybrick for the murder of her husband by administering arsenic. The enquiry lasted two days and we committed her for trial on the capital charge, feeling no doubt as to our duty, though of course we heard only the evidence for the Crown. It afterwards became a cause celèbre. Mrs. Maybrick was condemned to death, but the sentence was commuted to penal servitude. She had many influential friends, and the agitation to obtain her release was continued with great activity for many years.