According to a contemporary, who spoke with intimate knowledge, he 'was one of the straightest advocates a circuit ever saw.' He took silk' in 1877, was elected a bencher in 1879, and eventually became leader of the northern circuit.
In 1880 he felt that his position at the bar justified him in entering political life, and at the general election of that year he stood as a liberal candidate for Whitehaven, where the Lowther influence was strong against him. His opponent was George Cavendish Bentinck, and he was defeated by 182 votes. Nor was he more successful in 1885, when he tried again and was again defeated by the same opponent. It was not until 1892 that he obtained a seat in the House of Commons. Robert Ferguson, the liberal member for Carlisle, dissented from Gladstone's home rule policy, and at the general election of 1892 Gully was selected as a liberal candidate in his place. He was opposed by F. Cavendish Bentinck, but was returned by a majority of 143, and retained the seat until he left the House of Commons. In the same year he was appointed recorder of Wigan. In the House of Commons Gully did not take a very active part in debates, but was known, and liked, as a quiet member, apparently more interested in his professional than in his political work. His opportunity came in 1895. In the April of that year Mr. Speaker Peel resigned his post. The liberal majority was small, dwindling and precarious, and the unionists resolved to nominate a member of their own party as his successor. The candidate whom they selected was Matthew White Ridley [q. v. Suppl. II], afterwards home secretary and first Viscount Ridley. On the liberal side Mr. Leonard Courtney (now Lord Courtney of Penwith), who had been chairman of ways and means, was suggested by the cabinet. But his attitude on the Irish question and his somewhat brusque individualism were certain to alienate liberal and nationalist votes. Sir Henry Campbell Bannerman [q. v. Suppl. II] avowed his willingness to take the post, and he would apparently have been accepted by the unionists. But Sir William Harcourt was unwilling to lose so valuable a colleague. Then Gully was suggested as a 'safe' man, whom all the sections of the liberal party would support. The suggestion is said to have come from Henry Labouchere. Gully was adopted as the liberal candidate, and on 10 April he was elected against Sir Matthew White Ridley by a majority of eleven votes. The opposition resented their defeat, and it was intimated that in the event of an early change of government the unionist party, if return to power at a general election, would not feel bound to continue Gully as speaker in a new parliament. On 25 June, after Lord Rosebery's retirement. Lord Salisbury became prime minister, parliament was dissolved on 8 July, and at the general election the unionist party obtained a large majority. Gully's seat at Carlisle was contested, but he succeeded in retaining it by an increased majority. During the short interval which elapsed between Gully's election to the office of speaker and the dissolution of parliament he had firmly established his reputation as an excellent occupant of the chair, and when the new parliament met in August the notion of opposing his re-election was abandoned, the tradition of continuing in office an efficient speaker was maintained, and on the motion of Sir John Mowbray, the father of the house, he was unanimously re-elected. He retained his office, after another re-election in 1900, until his retirement in March 1905.
Gully had a difficult task to perform in succeeding the majestic and awe-inspiring Peel, but he proved himself equal to the task. Handsome, dignified, courteous, impartial, he sustained the judicial traditions of many parliamentary generations. His professional training enabled him to master quickly the rules and practice of the house, and his judicial temperament secured their impartial application. There were some who criticised his interpretation of them as too technical, to others it sometimes appeared that, as is natural to men of sensitive conscience, he inclined too much, in cases of doubt, to the side to which he was politically opposed; but no one ever questioned his fairness of mind. One re-regrettable incident lost him the confidence of the Irish nationalist party. On 5 March 1901, at a sitting of the committee of supply, the chairman, Mr. Lowther (afterwards speaker), had granted the closure, and a division was called; but when the order was given to clear the house, about a dozen Irish members refused to leave their seats. The speaker was sent for, and repeated the order; but the members refused to leave the house, and were forcibly removed by the police. The rule thus enforced was not embodied in any standing order and has since been expressly repealed. But there is no doubt that it represented the then existing practice of the House. Whether its enforcement could have been avoided is a
