The Dictionary of Australasian Biography/Wrensfordsley, Sir Henry Thomas

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1462142The Dictionary of Australasian Biography — Wrensfordsley, Sir Henry ThomasPhilip Mennell

Wrensfordsley, Sir Henry Thomas, late Acting Chief Justice, Western Australia, is the son of Joseph H. Wrensfordsley, of Dublin, and was educated in France and at Trinity College, Dublin. He entered at the Middle Temple on June 1st, 1860, and was called to the Bar on April 30th, 1863. He was a member of the old Norfolk Circuit, and was successively deputy county court judge for the metropolitan districts of Marylebone, Brompton, and Brentford, 1876; second Puisne Judge, Mauritius, Nov. 1877; Procureur and Advocate-General, June 1878; Chief Justice of Western Australia, 1880. In this capacity he represented the colony at the Intercolonial Conference of the Australian colonies, held at Sydney in 1881; he was Chief Justice of Fiji and Chief Judicial Commissioner of the Western Pacific from Oct 1882 to 1883; administered the government of Western Australia from Feb. to June 1883; and acted for some time as judge of the Supreme Court of Tasmania; and as puisne judge of Victoria in 1888. Sir Henry unsuccessfully contested Peterborough in the Conservative interest in 1868 and 1874. He was knighted by patent on June 16th, 1883, and was appointed Acting Chief Justice of Western Australia in 1890. In 1891 he became Chief Justice of the Leeward Islands.