Halsbury, Hardinge Stanley Giffard, Earl of, 1823-1921

Hardinge Stanley Giffard, 1st Earl of Halsbury (3 September 1823 – 11 December 1921) was a British barrister and Conservative politician. He served three times as Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain, for a total of seventeen years, a record not equalled by anyone except Lords Hardwicke and Eldon. The son of a newspaper editor, Giffard was called to the English bar in 1850 and acquired a large criminal practice, defending the likes of Governor Eyre and Arthur Orton, the Tichborne claimant. He was chosen as solicitor-general by Disraeli in 1874, despite not securing a seat in the House of Commons until three years later. In 1885, he was appointed to the lord chancellorship by Lord Salisbury, and was created Baron Halsbury, serving until the following year. He then held the lord chancellorship again from 1886 until 1892, and from 1895 until 1905, when he resigned, aged 86. In 1898, he was further honoured with an earldom and a viscounty, becoming the Earl of Halsbury. After relinquishing the lord chancellorship, Halsbury continued to sit as a law lord, delivering a judgement aged 93 in 1916. During the constitutional crisis over the Parliament Act 1911, Halsbury was one of the principal leaders of the rebel faction of Tory peers—labelled the "Ditchers"—that resolved on all out opposition to the government's bill limiting the House of Lords' veto whatever happened. He was also the first editor of the legal encyclopaedia which today bears his name, Halsbury's Laws of England. During his tenure on the woolsack, Halsbury was accused of favouring conservative lawyers for judicial appointments, although the consideration of political allegiances for judicial appointments was a common practice at the time, and later commentators have blamed bad luck for the failure of several of the judges he appointed. He was also accused of allowing political considerations affect his decisions as a judge, in particularly as they related to trade unions. He was, however, sympathetic to working men seeking workmen's compensation. In the realm of legal reform, he was responsible for enacting the Land Transfer Act 1897 (60 & 61 Vict. c. 65) and the Criminal Evidence Act 1898 (61 & 62 Vict. c. 36).