Sir John Charles Frederick Sigismund Day (20 June 1826 – 13 June 1908) was amongst the first

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

judges in

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

to be appointed after the

English Reformation The English Reformation took place in 16th-century England when the Church of England broke away from the authority of the pope and the Catholic Church. These events were part of the wider European Protestant Reformation, a religious and poli ...

, the first being

William Shee Sir William Shee (24 June 1804 – 1868) was an Anglo-Irish politician, lawyer and judge, the first Roman Catholic judge to sit in England and Wales since the Reformation. Early life and legal career Shee was born in Finchley, Middlesex. His f ...

. He was also known as a collector of paintings, including several works by

James McNeill Whistler James Abbott McNeill Whistler (; July 10, 1834July 17, 1903) was an American painter active during the American Gilded Age and based primarily in the United Kingdom. He eschewed sentimentality and moral allusion in painting and was a leading pr ...

. Born at

the Hague The Hague ( ; nl, Den Haag or ) is a city and municipality of the Netherlands, situated on the west coast facing the North Sea. The Hague is the country's administrative centre and its seat of government, and while the official capital of ...

, son of Captain John Day and his wife Emilie (née Hartsinck), Day completed his schooling at Downside, and, as the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge were at that time inaccessible to Catholics, obtained his BA from the

University of London The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in post-nominals) is a federal public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The university was established by royal charter in 1836 as a degree ...

in November 1845. He was admitted as a student in the

Middle Temple The Honourable Society of the Middle Temple, commonly known simply as Middle Temple, is one of the four Inns of Court exclusively entitled to call their members to the English Bar as barristers, the others being the Inner Temple, Gray's Inn an ...

in 1845, was called to the Bar, and became a judge in June 1882. He was well known for sentencing criminals to lashes. In his latter years, he would sometimes listen to cases with his eyes closed, listening intently, and opening an eye suddenly if something significant were said. Colleagues jocularly referred to this as "the peep of Day". He was one of the judges who sat on the

Parnell Commission The Parnell Commission, officially Special Commission on Parnellism and Crime, was a judicial inquiry in the late 1880s into allegations of crimes by Irish parliamentarian Charles Stewart Parnell which resulted in his vindication. Background On ...

. At the time it was said that it was on his insistence that early proof was tendered of the authenticity of the letters attributed to Parnell, which forced

Richard Pigott Richard Pigott (1835 – 1 March 1889) was an Irish journalist, best known for his forging of evidence that Charles Stewart Parnell of the Irish National Land League had been sympathetic to the perpetrators of the Phoenix Park Murders. Par ...

into the witness box and led to the collapse of that part of the case. He resigned from the

High Court of Justice The High Court of Justice in London, known properly as His Majesty's High Court of Justice in England, together with the Court of Appeal of England and Wales, Court of Appeal and the Crown Court, are the Courts of England and Wales, Senior Cou ...

in 1901, when he was granted an annuity of £3,500. In March the following year he was appointed to the

Privy Council A privy council is a body that advises the head of state of a state, typically, but not always, in the context of a monarchic government. The word "privy" means "private" or "secret"; thus, a privy council was originally a committee of the mon ...

. There are various portraits of Sir John Day. One of the most notable is a very large painting that is on display in the Royal Courts of Justice in London of several judges including Sir John Day. The National Portrait Gallery houses various cartoons and a photographic portrait of him. The ''Times'' ran an obituary notice on 18 June 1908, and carried an article on the sale of his art collection on 14 May 1909.

References

*Arthur Francis Day
''John CFS Day: his forbears and himself – a biographical study''
London, Heath Cranton, 1916.

External links

Photographic portrait from National Portrait Gallery
* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Day, John Charles 1826 births 1908 deaths Knights Bachelor People educated at Downside School Queen's Bench Division judges Members of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom