Sir Worley Bassett Edwards (5 September 1850 – 1 June 1927) was a New Zealand lawyer and judge. Edwards was born 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 ...

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 ...

, the son of Charles Scatcherd Wilson Edwards and his wife Cornelia Allen (Waller). He went to the

Otago Otago (, ; mi, Ōtākou ) is a region of New Zealand located in the southern half of the South Island administered by the Otago Regional Council. It has an area of approximately , making it the country's second largest local government reg ...

region, New Zealand, with his parents in 1856. Having embraced the practice of the law he gained a leading position in the profession, and was appointed a judge of the

native land court Native may refer to: People * Jus soli, citizenship by right of birth * Indigenous peoples, peoples with a set of specific rights based on their historical ties to a particular territory ** Native Americans (disambiguation) In arts and enterta ...

, with the position of a puisne judge of the

Supreme Court of New Zealand The Supreme Court of New Zealand ( mi, Te Kōti Mana Nui, lit=Court of Great Mana) is the highest court and the court of last resort of New Zealand. It formally came into being on 1 January 2004 and sat for the first time on 1 July 2004. It re ...

, in 1890 by the Atkins Government. When the Ballance Cabinet came into power in 1891, they disputed the appointment as ''

ultra vires ('beyond the powers') is a Latin phrase used in law to describe an act which requires legal authority but is done without it. Its opposite, an act done under proper authority, is ('within the powers'). Acts that are may equivalently be termed ...

'', but the

New Zealand Court of Appeal The Court of Appeal of New Zealand is the principal intermediate appellate court of New Zealand. It is also the final appellate court for a number of matters. In practice, most appeals are resolved at this intermediate appellate level, rather t ...

decided that the nomination was valid. The case was carried to the

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, and in May 1892 the Judicial Committee gave a decision adverse to the legality of the appointment, on the ground that Parliament had not previously been asked to provide Judge Edwards's salary. Edwards married Mary A. Cutten at

Wellington Wellington ( mi, Te Whanganui-a-Tara or ) is the capital city of New Zealand. It is located at the south-western tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Remutaka Range. Wellington is the second-largest city in New Zealand by me ...

in June 1886. He was knighted in the

1919 New Year Honours The 1919 New Year Honours were appointments by King George V to various orders and honours to reward and highlight good works by citizens of the British Empire. The appointments were published in ''The London Gazette'' and ''The Times'' in Jan ...

References

* 1850 births 1927 deaths 19th-century New Zealand lawyers British emigrants to New Zealand High Court of New Zealand judges Māori Land Court judges New Zealand Knights Bachelor Colony of New Zealand judges {{NewZealand-law-bio-stub