Sir Frank Lockwood,
QC (15 July 1846 – 18 December 1897) was an
English
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lawyer
A lawyer is a person who practices law. The role of a lawyer varies greatly across different legal jurisdictions. A lawyer can be classified as an advocate, attorney, barrister, canon lawyer, civil law notary, counsel, counselor, solic ...
and
Liberal Party
The Liberal Party is any of many political parties around the world. The meaning of ''liberal'' varies around the world, ranging from liberal conservatism on the right to social liberalism on the left.
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This is a li ...
politician who sat in the
House of Commons
The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. ...
as MP for
City of York
The City of York is a unitary authority area with city status in the ceremonial county of North Yorkshire, England. The district's main settlement is York, and it extends to the surrounding area including the town of Haxby and the villages of E ...
from 1885 to 1897.
Life
Lockwood was born in
Doncaster
Doncaster (, ) is a city in South Yorkshire, England. Named after the River Don, it is the administrative centre of the larger City of Doncaster. It is the second largest settlement in South Yorkshire after Sheffield. Doncaster is situated in ...
, the son of Charles Day Lockwood. His great-grandfather Joseph Lockwood (c. 1758-1837) was twice mayor of Doncaster, and his grandfather was for many years judge on the racecourse. Lockwood was educated at a private school, at
Manchester Grammar School
The Manchester Grammar School (MGS) in Manchester, England, is the largest independent school (UK), independent day school for boys in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1515 as a Grammar school#free tuition, free grammar school next to Manchester C ...
, and
Caius College, Cambridge
Gonville and Caius College, often referred to simply as Caius ( ), is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1348, it is the fourth-oldest of the University of Cambridge's 31 colleges and one of th ...
.
Lockwood was called to the bar at
Lincoln's Inn
The Honourable Society of Lincoln's Inn is one of the four Inns of Court in London to which barristers of England and Wales belong and where they are called to the Bar. (The other three are Middle Temple, Inner Temple and Gray's Inn.) Lincoln ...
in 1872, and joined the old midland circuit, afterwards going to the north-eastern, making in his first year 120 guineas and in the next 265 guineas. From that time he had a career of uninterrupted success,
a high-profile brief being the defence of the murderer
Charles Peace
Charles Peace (14 May 1832 – 25 February 1879) was an English burglar and murderer, who embarked on a life of crime after being maimed in an industrial accident as a boy.
After killing a policeman in Manchester, he fled to his native Shef ...
in 1879. In 1880 was a member of a Royal Commission to enquire into Corrupt Practices at Chester. He was made a
Queen's Counsel
In the United Kingdom and in some Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth countries, a King's Counsel (Post-nominal letters, post-nominal initials KC) during the reign of a king, or Queen's Counsel (post-nominal initials QC) during the reign of ...
in 1882 and in 1884 he was made recorder of Sheffield.
Lockwood made two unsuccessful attempts to enter parliament, the one at
King's Lynn
King's Lynn, known until 1537 as Bishop's Lynn and colloquially as Lynn, is a port and market town in the borough of King's Lynn and West Norfolk in the county of Norfolk, England. It is located north of London, north-east of Peterborough, no ...
at the
1880 general election,
the other at
York
York is a cathedral city with Roman origins, sited at the confluence of the rivers Ouse and Foss in North Yorkshire, England. It is the historic county town of Yorkshire. The city has many historic buildings and other structures, such as a ...
at
by-election in 1883. He was elected Liberal
Member of Parliament
A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members of ...
(MP) for York at the
1885 general election and held the seat until his death in 1897. In 1894 he became
solicitor-general in
Lord Rosebery
Archibald Philip Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery, 1st Earl of Midlothian, (7 May 1847 – 21 May 1929) was a British Liberal Party politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from March 1894 to June 1895. Between the death of ...
's ministry, and was knighted. He was solicitor-general for less than a year.
During this period he prosecuted the murderer
James Cadham Read
James is a common English language surname and given name:
*James (name), the typically masculine first name James
* James (surname), various people with the last name James
James or James City may also refer to:
People
* King James (disambiguat ...
.
In May 1895 Lockwood was lead counsel for the prosecution in Regina v. Oscar Wilde. The Liberal government seemed determined to get a successful prosecution. Edward Carson, who had successfully defended the Marquess of Queensbury against Wilde's misguided criminal libel, approached Frank Lockwood and asked "Can we not let up on the fellow now?". Lockwood answered that he would like to do so, but feared that the case had become too politicised to be dropped.
In 1896 Lockwood accompanied
Lord Chief Justice Russell and barrister Montague Hughes Crackanthorpe to the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
to attend the nineteenth meeting of the
American Bar Association
The American Bar Association (ABA) is a voluntary bar association of lawyers and law students, which is not specific to any jurisdiction in the United States. Founded in 1878, the ABA's most important stated activities are the setting of acad ...
as specially invited representatives of the English bar. On the trip he sustained the reputation which he enjoyed in England as a humorous
after-dinner speaker
Public speaking, also called oratory or oration, has traditionally meant the act of speaking face to face to a live audience. Today it includes any form of speaking (formally and informally) to an audience, including pre-recorded speech delive ...
, and helped to strengthen the bond of friendship between the bench and bar of the United States and the bench and bar of England.
Lockwood's uncle
Henry Francis Lockwood
Henry Francis Lockwood (18 September 1811, Doncaster – 21 July 1878, Richmond, Surrey) was an influential English architect active in the North of England.
Family
Lockwood was from a successful Doncaster family. His grandfather, Joseph Lockw ...
was an architect and his father a talented draughtsman. Lockwood also had a skill at drawing, which he used to amuse himself and his friends, by making caricatures in pen and ink, and sketches of humorous incidents, real or imaginary, relating to the topic nearest at hand.
He illustrated C. J. Darling's ''Scintillae Juris'' in 1889 and contributed to
Punch
Punch commonly refers to:
* Punch (combat), a strike made using the hand closed into a fist
* Punch (drink), a wide assortment of drinks, non-alcoholic or alcoholic, generally containing fruit or fruit juice
Punch may also refer to:
Places
* Pun ...
from 1893 to 1897. An exhibition of his work was held in London in March 1889. He was also author of ''The Law and Lawyers of Pickwick'' published in 1894.
Lockwood lived at Cober Hill,
Cloughton
Cloughton (pronounced ''Clow-tun'') is a small village and civil parish in the Scarborough district of North Yorkshire, England.
Description
It is situated approximately north of Scarborough town centre.
It has a parish church and two pubs ...
, near
Scarborough, North Yorkshire
Scarborough () is a seaside town in the Borough of Scarborough in North Yorkshire, England. Scarborough is located on the North Sea coastline. Historic counties of England, Historically in the North Riding of Yorkshire, the town lies between 10 ...
. He died in
London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
at the age of 51.
Lockwood married Julia Rosetta Salis Schwabe, daughter of Salis and
Julia Schwabe of Manchester and Glyn-y-Garth, Anglesey, on 3 September 1874. His wife was the sister of fellow MP
George Salis-Schwabe and the daughter of the educationalist
Julia Schwabe.
Lockwood was the brother-in-law of the 21st
MacLean of Lochbuie and there is a small island off the coast of
Mull
Mull may refer to:
Places
*Isle of Mull, a Scottish island in the Inner Hebrides
** Sound of Mull, between the Isle of Mull and the rest of Scotland
* Mount Mull, Antarctica
*Mull Hill, Isle of Man
* Mull, Arkansas, a place along Arkansas Highway ...
in Scotland near
Lochbuie named after him.
[Baird (1995) p. 142. Also see Journal of the Lorn Archaeological and Historical Society (2009). Frank Lockwood’s Island. http://www.lahsoc.org.uk/journals/journal_2009/7%20Frank%20Lockwoods%20Island.pdf ccessed 30 May 2014]
References
*See
Augustine Birrell
Augustine Birrell King's Counsel, KC (19 January 185020 November 1933) was a British Liberal Party (UK), Liberal Party politician, who was Chief Secretary for Ireland from 1907 to 1916. In this post, he was praised for enabling tenant farmers t ...
's biography of Lockwood and ''The Frank Lockwood Sketch-Book'' (1898).
*Entry in ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' by Augustine Birrell revised by H C G Matthew, OUP 2004-8
* Baird, Bob (1995) ''Shipwrecks of the West of Scotland''. Glasgow. Nekton Books.
Notes
External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Lockwood, Frank
1846 births
1897 deaths
Liberal Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies
UK MPs 1885–1886
UK MPs 1886–1892
UK MPs 1892–1895
UK MPs 1895–1900
Solicitors General for England and Wales
Members of Lincoln's Inn
People educated at Manchester Grammar School
Alumni of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge
Knights Bachelor
19th-century King's Counsel
People from Doncaster