Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Giffard, George Markham
GIFFARD, Sir GEORGE MARKHAM (1813–1870), lord justice of appeal, fourth son of Admiral John Giffard, and Susannah, daughter of Sir John Carter, was born at his father's official residence, Portsmouth dockyard, 4 Nov. 1813. He was educated at Winchester College and at New College, Oxford, where he was elected to a fellowship in 1832 and took the degree of B.C.L. on 4 March 1841, entered at the Inner Temple, of which he eventually became a bencher, and was called to the bar in November 1840. He rapidly obtained an excellent equity practice, and was for many years a leading chancery junior counsel. In 1859 he became a queen's counsel, and attached himself to the court of Vice-chancellor Sir William Page Wood, and, in spite of a severe illness which kept him from his work for many months after he received silk, he soon obtained a leading position in that court. When Vice-chancellor Wood in March 1868 became a lord justice of appeal, Giffard succeeded him, and was again his successor on his promotion from the court of appeal to the woolsack in December, when he also became a member of the privy council. After an illness of some length he died at his house, 4 Prince's Gardens, Hyde Park, London, on 13 July 1870. He was both quick and learned, indifferent to rhetorical display, terse in argument, and a refined and cultivated scholar. He was a decided liberal in politics, but never contested any constituency. In 1853 he married Maria, second daughter of Charles Pilgrim of Kingsfield, Southampton.
[Solicitors' Journal, 16 July 1870; Law Times, 16 July 1870. For descriptions of him by the Lord-chancellor and Lord-justice James, see Times, 16 and 20 July 1870; Cat. Oxf. Graduates; Kirby's Winchester Scholars.]