Francis Derwent Wood - Lord Henn Collins

Richard Henn Collins, Baron Collins (31 January 1842 – 3 January 1911) was an

Anglo-Irish Anglo-Irish people () denotes an ethnic, social and religious grouping who are mostly the descendants and successors of the English Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland. They mostly belong to the Anglican Church of Ireland, which was the establis ...

lawyer and judge.

Life

Born in

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of the Wicklow Mountains range. At the 2016 ...

, Collins was educated at the

Royal School Dungannon The Royal School is a mixed boarding school located in Dungannon, County Tyrone, Northern Ireland. It was one of a number of 'free schools' created by James I (otherwise known as James VI of Scotland) in 1608 to provide an education to the son ...

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 ...

(where he was elected a Scholar), and

Downing College, Cambridge Downing College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge and currently has around 650 students. Founded in 1800, it was the only college to be added to Cambridge University between 1596 and 1869, and is often described as the old ...

. In 1867, he was called to the English

bar Bar or BAR may refer to: Food and drink * Bar (establishment), selling alcoholic beverages * Candy bar * Chocolate bar Science and technology * Bar (river morphology), a deposit of sediment * Bar (tropical cyclone), a layer of cloud * Bar ( ...

and joined the northern circuit. He was made 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 ...

in 1883 and a judge in 1891. Having made a

Lord Justice of Appeal A Lord Justice of Appeal or Lady Justice of Appeal is a judge of the Court of Appeal of England and Wales, the court that hears appeals from the High Court of Justice, the Crown Court and other courts and tribunals. A Lord (or Lady) Justic ...

in 1897, he was appointed also 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 mo ...

. In October 1901, Collins became

Master of the Rolls The Keeper or Master of the Rolls and Records of the Chancery of England, known as the Master of the Rolls, is the President of the Civil Division of the Court of Appeal of England and Wales and Head of Civil Justice. As a judge, the Master of ...

after the death of Sir Archibald Smith, and the following month was appointed to the accompanying post of Chairman of the Historical Manuscripts Commission. He received the honorary degree LL.D. from the

University of Cambridge , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...

in May 1902. On 6 March 1907 he was appointed a

Lord of Appeal in Ordinary Lords of Appeal in Ordinary, commonly known as Law Lords, were judges appointed under the Appellate Jurisdiction Act 1876 to the British House of Lords, as a committee of the House, effectively to exercise the judicial functions of the House o ...

, receiving additionally a

life peerage In the United Kingdom, life peers are appointed members of the peerage whose titles cannot be inherited, in contrast to hereditary peers. In modern times, life peerages, always created at the rank of baron, are created under the Life Peerages A ...

with the title Baron Collins, ''of

Kensington Kensington is a district in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in the West of Central London. The district's commercial heart is Kensington High Street, running on an east–west axis. The north-east is taken up by Kensington Garden ...

in the

County of London The County of London was a county of England from 1889 to 1965, corresponding to the area known today as Inner London. It was created as part of the general introduction of elected county government in England, by way of the Local Government A ...

''. He resigned as Lord of Appeal on 9 January 1910. Lord Collins was judge of the trial of

Oscar Wilde Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 185430 November 1900) was an Irish poet and playwright. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of the most popular playwrights in London in the early 1890s. He is ...

's libel prosecution against the Marquess of Queensberry on 3 April 1895 (as noted in "The Trials of Oscar Wilde", by

H. Montgomery Hyde Harford Montgomery Hyde (14 August 190710 August 1989), born in Belfast, Ireland, was a barrister, politician (Ulster Unionist MP for Belfast North), prolific author and biographer. He was deselected by his party in 1959, losing his seat in th ...

(1962) at p97). He represented

Great Britain Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island and the ninth-largest island in the world. It ...

on the Venezuela Boundary Commission, established to adjudicate in the

boundary dispute A territorial dispute or boundary dispute is a disagreement over the possession or control of land between two or more political entities. Context and definitions Territorial disputes are often related to the possession of natural resources ...

between

British Guiana British Guiana was a British colony, part of the mainland British West Indies, which resides on the northern coast of South America. Since 1966 it has been known as the independent nation of Guyana. The first European to encounter Guiana was ...

and

Venezuela Venezuela (; ), officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela ( es, link=no, República Bolivariana de Venezuela), is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many islands and islets in th ...

in 1899. In 1904, he was chairman of the commission which investigated the case of

Adolf Beck The Adolf Beck case was a notorious incident of wrongful conviction by mistaken identity, brought about by unreliable methods of identification, erroneous eyewitness testimony, and a rush to convict the accused. As one of the best known causes ...

He died at

Hove Hove is a seaside resort and one of the two main parts of the city of Brighton and Hove, along with Brighton in East Sussex, England. Originally a "small but ancient fishing village" surrounded by open farmland, it grew rapidly in the 19th ...

East Sussex East Sussex is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South East England on the English Channel coast. It is bordered by Kent to the north and east, West Sussex to the west, and Surrey to the north-west. The largest settlement in East ...

on 3 January 1911.

Family

His wife, Jane Ogle, Lady Collins (d.1934), is buried in

Brompton Cemetery Brompton Cemetery (originally the West of London and Westminster Cemetery) is a London cemetery, managed by The Royal Parks, in West Brompton in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. It is one of the Magnificent Seven cemeteries. Establ ...

. His younger son, Sir Stephen Henn-Collins, became a High Court judge.

Cases

*'' Sumpter v Hedges'' *'' Wilde v Douglas'' *'' Chandler v Webster'' *'' Henderson v Arthur''

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Collins, Richard 1842 births 1911 deaths Alumni of Downing College, Cambridge Alumni of Trinity College Dublin Burials at Brompton Cemetery Knights Bachelor Law lords Masters of the Rolls Members of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council Members of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom Queen's Bench Division judges 19th-century King's Counsel Scholars of Trinity College Dublin 19th-century English judges 20th-century English judges Lords Justices of Appeal Peers created by Edward VII Presidents of the Classical Association