Dictionary of National Biography, 1927 supplement/Palles, Christopher
PALLES, CHRISTOPHER (1831–1920), lord chief baron of the exchequer in Ireland, was born at Dublin 25 December 1831, the second son of Andrew Christopher Palles, of Little Mount Palles, co. Cavan, by his wife, Eleanor, daughter of Matthew Thomas Plunkett, of Rathmore, co. Kildare. Educated at Clongowes Wood College and Trinity College, Dublin, he graduated in 1852 as a senior moderator in mathematics. Called to the Irish bar (King's Inns, Dublin) in 1853, he acquired such reputation as a junior that on becoming Q.C. (1865) he was retained in almost every important case. He ultimately limited his practice to chancery, gaining the familiarity with equity which distinguished his decisions on appeal. In 1872 he became solicitor-general for Ireland, and, later in the same year, attorney-general. In that year also he contested Londonderry city unsuccessfully in the liberal interest. In February 1874, on the eve of the fall of Gladstone's first ministry, he was promoted chief baron of the Irish court of exchequer and held that high office until his resignation in 1916. The exchequer, composed of Palles and Barons Francis A. Fitzgerald, Rickard Deasy [q.v.], Richard Dowse [q.v.], and Judge William Drennan Andrews, was a powerful court. By the Supreme Court of Judicature (Ireland) Act (1897) it was merged in the Queen's bench division of the Irish high court of justice, but Palles retained his title and precedence as lord chief baron. Under him and his colleagues the court became a practical school of law thronged by the junior bar. Palles was a dignified, courteous, and kindly chief, who delighted in the intellectual duels of leaders, and was ever ready to prompt and encourage the young advocate who displayed diligence and research; but to attempt a fallacious or ill-supported contention ensured rebuke and disaster.
Palles lived in the law, and his decisions are his best memorial. The Irish Reports from 1874 to 1916 reveal the man and his characteristics: his mastery of law as a science in all its ramifications; his penetrating research; his remarkable ‘case memory’; his grip of common law, of equity, and of statute law; his assimilation of every branch of jurisprudence; his methods of historical ratiocination, convincing deduction, and lucid exposition; his reverence for precedent; the guarded courage with which he enunciated principles and yet safely limited their application. His judgments were delivered with restrained judicial eloquence, in a voice of clear timbre, virile and compelling. He vivified and verified Coke's dictum, ‘Reason is the life of the law, nay the common law itself is nothing but reason, which is to be understood of an artificial perfection of reason begotten by long study, observation and experience.’
At the Connaught winter assizes of 1886 Palles delivered a judgement of great constitutional importance, which excited much public interest. It deals with the duty of the executive to protect the sheriff in the execution of writs, and it defeated an attempt on the part of the chief secretary, Sir Michael Hicks Beach (afterwards Earl St. Aldwyn) [q.v.], and the under-secretary, Sir Redvers Buller [q.v.], to exercise a kind of dispensing power by withholding from the sheriffs the aid of the constabulary.
Palles shone in the intimate hospitalities of bench and bar on circuit. He was full of affability, an excellent raconteur, delighting in, and delighting, young men. The public universally esteemed him, and even the suspicious peasantry of Ireland looked up to him with awed admiration as the embodiment of judicial impartiality. Palles was not only a lawyer; he was also a great educationist. He acted as chairman of the Board of Intermediate Education for Ireland (1896–1910), was commissioner of Irish national education (1890–1913), and chairman of the commissioners of Irish university education (1908); and, in his eightieth year, he practically drafted the constitution of the National University. He was a privy councillor of Ireland (1872) and of England (1892). He was a devout Roman Catholic, and the most charitable and tolerant of men. He died at Dundrum, co. Dublin, 14 February 1920.
Palles married in 1862 Ellen (died 1885), only daughter of Denis Doyle, of Dublin. There was one son of the marriage..
F. Elrington Ball, The Judges in Ireland, 1221–1921, vol. ii, 1926; professional and personal knowledge.]