Charles Darling, 1st Baron Darling

Who was Charles Darling, 1st Baron Darling?

Charles John Darling was an English lawyer, politician and later a High Court judge. He was educated privately, paid for by his uncle William Menelaus. After pupilage, Darling was called to the English Bar in 1874. He was appointed a Queen's Counsel in 1885, and was a Conservative Member of Parliament for Deptford from 1888 until 1897, when he was appointed a Judge of the Queen's Bench Division. As a judge, he presided over a number of important trials, including the Steine Morrison case, that of 'Chicago May' Churchill and the trial for criminal libel of The Hon Noel Pemberton Billing MP. He also sat on the criminal appeals of Dr Hawley Crippen and Sir Roger Casement, both of which he dismissed. He was known for his erudition and at times inappropriate wit, both on and off the bench, as well as for being impeccably dressed and wearing a silk top hat whilst riding to Court on a horse and accompanied by a liveried groom. He displayed his literary acuity in a book of essays Scintillae Juris. The novelist and barrister F. C. Philips gave his opinion, 'I think that the wittiest book ever written by a legal luminary was one called "Scintillæ Juris" by Mr. Justice Darling, when he was a barrister on the Oxford Circuit. I understand that when he was raised to the Bench he stopped its circulation.'