Sir Joseph Napier, 1st Baronet (26 December 1804 – 9 December 1882) was an Irish Conservative Party Member of Parliament (MP) in the United Kingdom Parliament. He was also a barrister and judge, who served briefly as Lord Chancellor of Ireland.

Career

He was the son of William Napier and Rosetta MacNaghten of Ballyreagh House,

County Antrim County Antrim (named after the town of Antrim, ) is one of six counties of Northern Ireland and one of the thirty-two counties of Ireland. Adjoined to the north-east shore of Lough Neagh, the county covers an area of and has a population o ...

, and was born in

Belfast Belfast ( , ; from ga, Béal Feirste , meaning 'mouth of the sand-bank ford') is the capital and largest city of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan on the east coast. It is the 12th-largest city in the United Kingdom ...

, Ireland, where his father was a prosperous

brewer Brewing is the production of beer by steeping a starch source (commonly cereal grains, the most popular of which is barley) in water and fermenting the resulting sweet liquid with yeast. It may be done in a brewery by a commercial brewer ...

. The family had emigrated to

Ulster Ulster (; ga, Ulaidh or ''Cúige Uladh'' ; sco, label= Ulster Scots, Ulstèr or ''Ulster'') is one of the four traditional Irish provinces. It is made up of nine counties: six of these constitute Northern Ireland (a part of the United Kin ...

from

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a Anglo-Scottish border, border with England to the southeast ...

: they were descended from

John Napier John Napier of Merchiston (; 1 February 1550 – 4 April 1617), nicknamed Marvellous Merchiston, was a Scottish landowner known as a mathematician, physicist, and astronomer. He was the 8th Laird of Merchiston. His Latinized name was Ioan ...

, inventor of the

logarithm In mathematics, the logarithm is the inverse function to exponentiation. That means the logarithm of a number to the base is the exponent to which must be raised, to produce . For example, since , the ''logarithm base'' 10 of ...

. He attended the Belfast Academical Institution and

Trinity College Dublin , name_Latin = Collegium Sanctae et Individuae Trinitatis Reginae Elizabethae juxta Dublin , motto = ''Perpetuis futuris temporibus duraturam'' (Latin) , motto_lang = la , motto_English = It will last i ...

, before being called to the

Irish Bar The Bar of Ireland ( ga, Barra na hÉireann) is the professional association of barristers for Ireland, with over 2,000 members. It is based in the Law Library, with premises in Dublin and Cork. It is governed by the General Council of the Ba ...

in 1831. He had contemplated remaining at Trinity and seeking a

fellowship A fellow is a concept whose exact meaning depends on context. In learned or professional societies, it refers to a privileged member who is specially elected in recognition of their work and achievements. Within the context of higher education ...

, but his marriage in 1831 disqualified him, as Trinity required its fellows to be

celibate Celibacy (from Latin ''caelibatus'') is the state of voluntarily being unmarried, sexually abstinent, or both, usually for religious reasons. It is often in association with the role of a religious official or devotee. In its narrow sense, th ...

. He built up a very large practice, and acquired an impressive reputation for learning, especially in the area of

pleading In law as practiced in countries that follow the English models, a pleading is a formal written statement of a party's claims or defenses to another party's claims in a civil action. The parties' pleadings in a case define the issues to be adju ...

. He became a

Queen's Counsel In the United Kingdom and in some Commonwealth countries, a King's Counsel (post-nominal initials KC) during the reign of a king, or Queen's Counsel (post-nominal initials QC) during the reign of a queen, is a lawyer (usually a barrister o ...

(QC) in 1844. He was MP for

Dublin University The University of Dublin ( ga, Ollscoil Átha Cliath), corporately designated the Chancellor, Doctors and Masters of the University of Dublin, is a university located in Dublin, Ireland. It is the degree-awarding body for Trinity College Dubl ...

from 1848 to 1858, after failing to be elected in 1847. He became

Attorney General for Ireland The Attorney-General for Ireland was an Irish and then (from the Act of Union 1800) United Kingdom government office-holder. He was senior in rank to the Solicitor-General for Ireland: both advised the Crown on Irish legal matters. With the ...

from March to December 1852. He was also made a member of the Privy Council of Ireland in 1852. He received a Doctorate in Civil Law in 1853. Napier was a staunch

Tory A Tory () is a person who holds a political philosophy known as Toryism, based on a British version of traditionalism and conservatism, which upholds the supremacy of social order as it has evolved in the English culture throughout history. The ...

in politics, and exceptionally diligent in attending to his political duties.Ball p.295 He left 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. T ...

when he was appointed Lord Chancellor of Ireland in 1858, an office he held until 1859. His appointment caused some surprise since he had made his reputation in the

courts of common law A court is any person or institution, often as a government institution, with the authority to adjudicate legal disputes between parties and carry out the administration of justice in civil, criminal, and administrative matters in accordanc ...

, although he also did some chancery work. Some embarrassment was caused by the revelation that a previous holder of the office,

Francis Blackburne Francis Blackburne PC (Ire) KS (11 November 1782 – 17 September 1867) was an Irish judge and eventually became Lord Chancellor of Ireland. Background Born at Great Footstown in County Meath, he was the son of Richard Blackburne of Great Foo ...

, had been offered it a second time, and after an initial refusal had been willing to accept; Blackburne took his rejection very badly. Napier was created a

Baronet A baronet ( or ; abbreviated Bart or Bt) or the female equivalent, a baronetess (, , or ; abbreviation Btss), is the holder of a baronetcy, a hereditary title awarded by the British Crown. The title of baronet is mentioned as early as the 14t ...

in 1867 and appointed to the Privy Council of the United Kingdom in 1868, which entitled him to sit on the

Judicial Committee of the Privy Council The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (JCPC) is the highest court of appeal for the Crown Dependencies, the British Overseas Territories, some Commonwealth countries and a few institutions in the United Kingdom. Established on 14 Aug ...

. Despite his obvious wish to return to office, he never became Chancellor again: even in the Tory party, his strong

Evangelical Evangelicalism (), also called evangelical Christianity or evangelical Protestantism, is a worldwide interdenominational movement within Protestant Christianity that affirms the centrality of being " born again", in which an individual expe ...

views had made him enemies, while the Bar complained that his deafness made it impossible for him to conduct business efficiently. He accepted the position of Lord Justice of Appeal, but the reaction from the Bar was so unfavourable (his deafness rather than his religious beliefs seems to have been the issue here) that he withdrew his name. His publications include educational, mathematical and legal works. In 1880, following the death of his eldest son William, a blow from which he never recovered, he retired to St Leonards-on-Sea in Sussex and died there on 9 December 1882. He was buried in

Mount Jerome Cemetery Mount is often used as part of the name of specific mountains, e.g. Mount Everest. Mount or Mounts may also refer to: Places * Mount, Cornwall, a village in Warleggan parish, England * Mount, Perranzabuloe, a hamlet in Perranzabuloe parish, C ...

, Dublin with a tablet to his memory placed in St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin.

Reputation

He was remembered as a learned jurist and a diligent Parliamentarian, but above all as a devout

Protestant Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century against what its followers perceived to b ...

with a deep devotion to the

Church of Ireland The Church of Ireland ( ga, Eaglais na hÉireann, ; sco, label= Ulster-Scots, Kirk o Airlann, ) is a Christian church in Ireland and an autonomous province of the Anglican Communion. It is organised on an all-Ireland basis and is the secon ...

, whose disestablishment he fiercely opposed. When young he was an extreme

, and strongly opposed to

Catholic Emancipation Catholic emancipation or Catholic relief was a process in the kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland, and later the combined United Kingdom in the late 18th century and early 19th century, that involved reducing and removing many of the restricti ...

, but it is said that his views mellowed as he grew older. His earlier religious views led to a clash with

Daniel O'Connell Daniel O'Connell (I) ( ga, Dónall Ó Conaill; 6 August 1775 – 15 May 1847), hailed in his time as The Liberator, was the acknowledged political leader of Ireland's Roman Catholic majority in the first half of the 19th century. His mobilizat ...

, who nicknamed him "Holy Joe". He was sometimes accused of hypocrisy, and certainly knew how to dissemble: candidates for office who were assured of his support sometimes found to their outrage that he had been blocking them all along.

Family

He married Charity (Cherry) Grace, daughter of John Grace of Dublin (from an old Kilkenny family), on 20 August 1831. Described as "an impulsive love match", the marriage was a very happy one. They had 2 sons: William John Napier, who predeceased his parents, to their intense grief, and Sir Joseph Napier, 2nd Baronet, and 3 daughters: Grace, Rosetta and Cherry. Lady Napier died on 4 March 1901. One of his sisters, Rosetta Napier, married

James Whiteside James Whiteside (12 August 1804 – 25 November 1876) was an Irish politician and judge. Background and education Whiteside was born at Delgany, County Wicklow, the son of William Whiteside, a clergyman of the Church of Ireland. His father wa ...

, Attorney General for Ireland and later

Lord Chief Justice of Ireland The Court of King's Bench (or Court of Queen's Bench during the reign of a Queen) was one of the senior courts of common law in Ireland. It was a mirror of the Court of King's Bench in England. The Lord Chief Justice was the most senior judge ...

. The warm friendship between the two men ended in a bitter quarrel which was never made up. Another sister, Mary Napier, married Echlin Molyneux who later became a Professor of English Law at Queen's University Belfast; she died young in 1831, leaving a son, James Henry. John Robinson, founder and proprietor of the Dublin Daily Express, was a cousin: this assured Napier of favourable press coverage in a wide-circulation Unionist newspaper.

References

Bibliography

* ''Who's Who of British Members of Parliament: Vol. I 1832-1885'', edited by Michael Stenton (The Harvester Press 1976) * Andrew Shields, The Irish Conservative Party, 1852-1868: Land, Politics and Religion (Dublin, 2007)
Authorized Report of the Proceedings of the Church Congress
held at York, 1866. with speech from Napier * Charles Mosley, Burke's Peerage and Baronetage, 107th edition, Wilmington, Delaware, U.S.A. 2003 * Copy of confirmation of arms to the descendants of Joseph Napier of St. Andrews, Co. Down and to his grandson, the Rt. Hon. Joseph Napier, M.P., Lord Chancellor of Ireland, son of William Napier of St. Andrews, 16 March 1867. Dublin: National Library of Ireland, Genealogical Office: Ms. 109, pp. 143–4 * Our portrait gallery - No. LXIX: The Rt. Hon. Joseph Napier, M. P. (With etching). The Dublin University magazine: a literary and political journal, Vol. XLI, pp. 300–314, March, 1853. National Library of Ireland. * * Ewald, Alexander Charles. ''The Life of Sir Joseph Napier, Bart., ex Lord Chancellor of Ireland: from his private correspondence''. Longmans, Green. London, 492pp. 188

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Napier, Joseph, 1st Baronet 1804 births 1882 deaths Lord chancellors of Ireland Baronets in the Baronetage of the United Kingdom Lawyers from Belfast Members of the Privy Council of Ireland Members of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom Alumni of Trinity College Dublin Irish Conservative Party MPs UK MPs 1847–1852 UK MPs 1852–1857 UK MPs 1857–1859 Attorneys-General for Ireland Burials at St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for Dublin University Members of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council Politicians from Belfast