of criticism; but his judgments were seldom reversed. With the bar he was exceedingly popular. In 1900 Lord Alverstone became lord chief justice of England, Sir Archibald Levin Smith succeeded him as master of the Rolls, and Stirling was promoted to the court of Appeal. As a lord justice, he was inclined to defer unduly to his colleagues, whose opinion was not always as good as his own. In one well-known instance (the case of Farquharson v. King, 1902) the House of Lords preferred Stirling's dissenting judgment to those of the majority in the Court of Appeal. From time to time he found himself sitting with two other senior wranglers, Lords Justices Romer and Moulton.
Stirling retired from the bench in 1906. Thereafter he spent most of his time at his country house, Finchcocks, at Goudhurst, Kent, taking no further part in legal affairs. Knighted on his appointment to the bench, he was sworn of the Privy Council when he became a lord justice. He died 27 June 1916 at Goudhurst.
Stirling married in 1868 Aby, daughter of John Thomson Renton, of Bradstone Brook, Shalford, Surrey, who survived him. They had one son and two daughters.
An oil-portrait by Sir William Orpen is in the possession of the family, and there is a caricature by ‘Spy’ in Vanity Fair.
[The Times, 28 June 1916; Law Journal, 1 July 1916; personal knowledge.]
STODDART, ANDREW ERNEST (1863–1915), cricketer, was born at Westoe, South Shields, 11 March 1863. He was the younger of the two sons of George Best Stoddart, by his wife, Elizabeth Whinney. When he was nine years old, his father, who had owned a wine merchant's business, went south, and Stoddart was educated at a private school kept by a Mr. Oliver in St. John's Wood. His reputation was made in London club cricket, and it was as a prominent player for Hampstead that he was chosen to play for Middlesex in August 1885. He soon established himself in first-class company with an innings of 79 against the strong bowling of Nottinghamshire. In the following season, playing for Hampstead against the Stoics, he scored 485, at that time the highest individual innings on record; and in 1887, in the Marylebone Club's centenary match, he made 151, putting up, in company with Arthur Shrewsbury [q.v.], 266 for the first wicket.
For the next ten years Stoddart was in the front rank of English amateurs. Most of his finest performances were for Middlesex, a county which at this period could put into the field a powerful batting side. The captain, A. J. Webbe, Stoddart, S. W. Scott, Sir T. C. O'Brien, and F. G. J. Ford were players who attracted large crowds to Lord's cricket ground during the last decade of the nineteenth century. The best of them was Stoddart, whose great scores are too numerous to give in detail. In 1891 he made 215, not out, against Lancashire, and in 1893, his most successful season, he scored at Lord's against Nottinghamshire, 195, not out, in the first innings and 124 in the second. He was chosen to represent England against Australia in 1890 at Manchester, but rain prevented play. In 1893 he played in all three test matches against Australia, making 83 at Kennington Oval and 42 at Manchester.
Stoddart's reputation in Australia stood as high as in England. He visited the colony in the winter of 1887, and again with the eleven taken out by the third Earl of Sheffield [see HOLROYD, Henry North] in 1891, when he made 134 in the third test match. In 1894 he went out as captain of a representative English team. Australian cricket was very strong, and the five test matches constituted a struggle of giants. In the first engagement England, after following on against a total of 586, won a surprising victory by ten runs. When the fifth game took place at Melbourne on 1 March 1895, the position was two matches each, and the fortunes of the deciding contest aroused intense interest. Eventually England, put in to make 297 in the last innings, succeeded in scoring the necessary runs for the loss of four wickets. Stoddart's own share in the triumphs of the tour was considerable, his consistent batting and judicious captaincy contributing much to the result. On his return to England he was received with enthusiasm. A second trip, which he organized in 1897, proved a complete disappointment. His eleven, of whose success high hopes were entertained, was handicapped by various misfortunes, and was overwhelmed in the test matches. The captain himself was obliged to stand down on several occasions, and could show nothing approaching his proper form. He retired soon afterwards, for after the summer of 1898 he ceased to play regularly for Middlesex. Now and then he took part in a match; on his last appearance, indeed, he made his highest score in first-class cricket—
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