Sir William Comer Petheram (1835 – 15 May 1922) was the Chief Justice of

Calcutta High Court The Calcutta High Court is the oldest High Court in India. It is located in B.B.D. Bagh, Kolkata, West Bengal. It has jurisdiction over the state of West Bengal and the Union Territory of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. The High Court buildi ...

and Vice Chancellor of

University of Calcutta The University of Calcutta (informally known as Calcutta University; CU) is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate State university (India), state university in India, located in Kolkata, West Bengal, India. Considered ...

. He was made a

Knight Bachelor The title of Knight Bachelor is the basic rank granted to a man who has been knighted by the monarch but not inducted as a member of one of the organised orders of chivalry; it is a part of the British honours system. Knights Bachelor are the ...

in 1884.

Career

Petheram was born in 1835 in

Lympsham Lympsham is a village and civil parish six miles west of Axbridge and six miles south-east of Weston-super-Mare, close to the River Axe in Somerset, England. The parish includes the hamlet of Wick where Wick Farmhouse dates from the mid 18th ce ...

, Somerset, the son of William Petheram of Pinhoe. In 1862 he was qualified as Special Pleader and passed from

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 1869. He joined service as Chief Judge of the Chief Court of North-Western Provinces in India. Petheram first served as Chief justice of

Allahabad High Court Allahabad High Court, also known as High Court of Judicature at Allahabad is the high court based in Prayagraj that has jurisdiction over the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. It was established on 17 March 1866, making it one of the oldest high ...

in 1884 to 1886 then became the Chief Justice of Calcutta High Court on 24 March 1886 after

Sir Richard Garth ''Sir'' is a formal honorific address in English for men, derived from Sire in the High Middle Ages. Both are derived from the old French "Sieur" (Lord), brought to England by the French-speaking Normans, and which now exist in French only as p ...

and retired in November 1896. In 1887-90 he was also the Vice Chancellor of the Calcutta University. In 1864, he wrote a book named ''The law and practice relating to discovery by interrogatories under the Common law procedure act, 1854''. He was knighted in 1884. He married Isabel Congreve, daughter of

Sir William Congreve, 2nd Baronet Sir William Congreve, 2nd Baronet KCH FRS (20 May 1772 – 16 May 1828) was an English soldier, publisher and inventor. He pioneered rocket artillery and was renowned for his development and deployment of Congreve rockets. He was also a Tory M ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Petheram, Sir William Comer 1835 births 1922 deaths Knights Bachelor Members of the Middle Temple British India judges Judges of the Calcutta High Court 19th-century Indian judges Chief Justices of the Calcutta High Court 19th-century English judges English barristers People from Lympsham Date of birth missing