William Forsyth QC (25 October 1812 – 26 December 1899) was a Scottish

lawyer A lawyer is a person who practices law. The role of a lawyer varies greatly across different legal jurisdictions. A lawyer can be classified as an advocate, attorney, barrister, canon lawyer, civil law notary, counsel, counselor, solic ...

and Conservative Member of Parliament (MP).

Early life and education

He was born at

Greenock Greenock (; sco, Greenock; gd, Grianaig, ) is a town and administrative centre in the Inverclyde council areas of Scotland, council area in Scotland, United Kingdom and a former burgh of barony, burgh within the Counties of Scotland, historic ...

in Renfrewshire, son of merchant Thomas Forsyth, of Birkenhead, and Jane Campbell, daughter of John Hamilton, of Deer Park, near

, from a landed gentry family of Scottish origin that had settled at

Wilton, Herefordshire Wilton is a village in south Herefordshire, England just under a mile west of the market town of Ross-on-Wye. In 1100, Henry I set up three royal manors in Herefordshire, including the manor of Wilton. This included a number of surrounding vill ...

. His brother was the diplomat Sir

Douglas Forsyth Sir Thomas Douglas Forsyth (7 October 1827 – 17 December 1886) was an Anglo-Indian administrator and diplomat. Early life Forsyth was born in Birkenhead on 7 October 1827. He was the tenth child of Thomas Forsyth, a Liverpool merchant. His ...

. He was educated at Sherborne School and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he graduated B.A. in 1834. He was admitted at the Inner Temple in 1834 and called to the Bar in 1839.

Career

He became a Bencher of the Inner Temple in 1857, Queen's Counsel in 1857 and Treasurer in 1872. He worked on the Midland Circuit. He was Standing Counsel to Secretary of State for India 1859 to 1874. He was elected as MP for Cambridge at the 1865 general election but was unseated in April 1866, being disqualified as holding an office of profit under the Crown. He was later MP for Marylebone from 1874 to 1880. He wrote a number of books on historical and legal subjects, including ''History of Trial By Jury'' (1852), ''Life of Cicero'' (1864), ''The Novels and Novelists of the Eighteenth Century'' (1871) and ''Hannibal in Italy'' (1872). He was also editor of several magazines. Forsyth was a member of the Canterbury Association from 1 May 1848 to 22 April 1850, when he resigned. In 1849, the chief surveyor of the Canterbury Association, Joseph Thomas, named

Lake Forsyth Lake Forsyth (known to Māori as Te Roto o Wairewa) is a lake on the south-western side of Banks Peninsula in the Canterbury region of New Zealand, near the eastern end of the much larger Lake Ellesmere / Te Waihora. State Highway 75 to Akaro ...

for him. He died at Knightsbridge, Middlesex, and was buried in Brookwood Cemetery in

Surrey Surrey () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South East England, bordering Greater London to the south west. Surrey has a large rural area, and several significant urban areas which form part of the Greater London Built-up Area. ...

. His will probated at £18,667 in 1899.

Family

Forsyth was married twice. He was firstly married to Mary Lyall (daughter of George Lyall and Margaret Ann Edwards) (1819–1864), in 1843, by whom he had six children (two sons and four daughters). He remarried to Georgina Plummer in 1866; they also had children. His descendants and spouses of descendants include Doreen Knatchbull, Baroness Brabourne, James Stanhope, 7th Earl Stanhope and

John Hamilton Wedgwood Sir John Hamilton Wedgwood, 2nd Baronet, (16 November 1907 – 8 December 1989) was a British politician and industrialist. Biography Born in Newcastle upon Tyne, Wedgwood was the son of Sir Ralph Wedgwood, 1st Baronet and his wife Iris Veron ...

References

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* * * 1812 births 1899 deaths Conservative Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies UK MPs 1865–1868 UK MPs 1874–1880 Scottish lawyers Politics of the City of Westminster People from Greenock People educated at Sherborne School Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge Members of the Inner Temple 19th-century King's Counsel Members of the Canterbury Association Burials at Brookwood Cemetery {{England-Conservative-UK-MP-1810s-stub