Admitted 20 February, 1667-8.
Fourth son of John Cairnes of Parsonstown, co. Tyrone. He practised as a lawyer in Londonderry, where he was a person of property and influence; but his title to distinction is the part he took in the defence of that city when, threatened by Tyrconnell's troops in 1688. It was he who went on a mission to London to William III. to procure aid, and it was greatly by his vigorous action in command of a regiment that the place was saved from surrender. At the end of the war he was returned member for Londonderry. He became also Recorder of the city. He died in 1772, and was buried in the Cathedral church.
Admitted 3 May, 1855.
Eldest son of William Cairnes, brewer, of Drogheda. Born at Castle Bellingham, Louth, 26 Dec. 1823. He graduated B.A. at Dublin in 1848, and M.A. in 1854, and in 1856 won the Whately Professorship of Political Economy there, which he held for five years. He was called to the Irish Bar in 1857. In 1866 he was appointed Professor of Political Economy at University College, London, but becoming an invalid settled at Blackheath in 1870, where he was a near neighbour of John Stuart Mill, whose friendship he enjoyed. In 1873 he published a volume of Political Essays, and also Essays on Political Economy. He was greatly interested in the Slave questions of America, on which he wrote powerful pamphlets in 1862 and 1863, also on Education in Ireland, and Woman's Suffrage, on which he published his views. His feeble health, however, prevented his undertaking continuous literary labour.
Admitted 5 January, 1844.
Second son of William Cairns of Cultra, co. Down. He was educated at Dublin University, where he took a first class in Classics. He was admitted to the Middle Temple from Lincoln's Inn where he had kept all his terms, and was called to the Bar at the Middle Temple 26 Jan. 1844. In July, 1852, he entered Parliament as member for Belfast, and in 1856 took silk and became a Bencher of Lincoln's Inn. In Feb. 1858, he was appointed Solicitor-General and knighted, and from that time, besides enjoying an enormous practice at the Bar, became a conspicuous figure in political life. In 1866 he was appointed Attorney-General, and in the following year was raised to the House of Lords, where he took an active part in the debates on the Reform Bill. In Feb. 1868, during Mr. Disraeli's ministry, he became Lord Chancellor in succession to Lord Chelmsford. On a change of Government in the following year he led the Opposition in the House of Lords. When the Conservatives came into office again in 1874 he resumed the office of Chancellor, and held it till the Conservative defeat in 1880, after which he took a comparatively small part in public affairs, his health greatly failing. He lived much on the Riviera and at Bournemouth, where he died 2 April, 1885, with the reputation of being the "first lawyer of his time." His Decisions on the Albert Arbitration Cases were reported by Francis S. Reilly, 1871—75.
