of England (1905–1916), which is known by his name and took its place at once as the most necessary work in any collection of books purporting to be a library of English law.
In the parliament of 1905–1910, the Marquess of Lansdowne being the conservative leader in the House of Lords, Halsbury acquiesced with reluctance in the mildness of the opposition offered in the Upper House to such measures as the Trades Disputes Act (1906), which relieved trade unions and their members of official responsibility for breaches of contract or tortious acts committed by them, and the Finance Act of 1909. After the second general election of 1910, when the Parliament Bill which most seriously curtailed the legislative powers of the House of Lords came before that House, the opposition, having regard to the great majority by which it had been carried in the House of Commons, allowed it to be read a second time, and then carried against the government amendments in committee so largely limiting its scope that there was known to be no possibility of their acceptance by Mr. Asquith’s government. After the House of Commons had refused to accept these amendments, and when it became known that ministers were prepared to advise the creation of as many peers favourable to their proposals as might be necessary, and that the King had indicated that he would follow such advice, Lord Lansdowne advised his party in the Lords not to insist upon the amendments which they had carried. Halsbury’s capacity for surrender was now exhausted. At the age of eighty-eight he formed and led a new party among the peers, popularly known as the ‘die-hards’; and the debate which ensued, upon the question whether the Lords’ amendments had been merely a formal protest or a minimum of genuine resistance to the proposed constitutional change, was not less exciting than momentous, for no one really knew how the decision would go. Halsbury fought his hardest, insisting that the House ought to stand by what it thought right, whatever the consequences might be. The division was taken on 10 August 1911, and the die-hards were defeated by the narrow margin of seventeen.
In 1913 Halsbury presided effectively over a committee of the House of Lords which inquired into the conduct of a peer—a member of the government—concerned in speculation in the shares of the American Marconi Company; and after the outbreak of war in 1914 he rendered further judicial service. His last judgment was delivered in 1916. He lived to see peace concluded, and to celebrate in 1920 the seventieth anniversary of his call to the bar, when he received and responded to an affectionate address from the bench and bar. In his ninety-eighth year his strength perceptibly failed, though his mind remained perfectly clear. He died in London, after two days’ illness from influenza, 11 December 1921.
Halsbury married twice: first, in 1852 Caroline (died 1873), daughter of William Conn Humphreys, of Wood Green, Middlesex, by whom he had no children; secondly, in 1874 Wilhelmina, daughter of Henry Woodfall, of Stanmore, Middlesex, a kinsman of Henry Sampson Woodfall [q.v.], the publisher. By his second wife he had one son, Hardinge Goulburn, second Earl of Halsbury, and one daughter.
Halsbury’s features were good, and expressive of power and resolution; his short and stoutly built figure lent itself to caricature. A fine portrait of him by Sir George Reid is in the possession of the family; another, by the Hon. John Collier, belongs to the benchers of the Inner Temple, and a copy of it is in the hall of Merton College (Royal Academy Pictures, 1898).
[The Times, 12 December 1921; J. B. Atlay, The Victorian Chancellors, 1906–1908; private information; personal knowledge.]
GILL, Sir DAVID (1843–1914), astronomer, the eldest son of David Gill, a watchmaker with a well-established business in Aberdeen, by his wife, Margaret Mitchell, was born at 48 Skene Terrace, Aberdeen, 12 June 1843. His interest in physical science, first aroused by the teaching of Dr. Lindsay at the Dollar Academy, was later extended and intensified at Marischal College and the University, Aberdeen, under the inspiring influence of Clerk Maxwell [q.v.]. At his father’s desire he entered the business and for a time had complete charge of it. He mastered all the details, and to the end of his life kept a clock made with his own hands. His spare time, however, he devoted to physics and chemistry in a small laboratory which he set up at home.
Gill’s active interest in astronomy dates from 1863. It occurred to him that a time service similar to that established by Charles Piazzi Smyth [q.v.] in Edinburgh might be usefully installed in Aberdeen. An introduction to Piazzi Smyth followed, when he was shown the arrangements for the time-gun and ball as well
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