Dodgson Hamilton Madden

Who was Dodgson Hamilton Madden?

Dodgson Hamilton Madden was an Irish Unionist Party Member of Parliament in the United Kingdom Parliament and subsequently a Judge. The Irish Unionists were the Irish wing of the Conservative Party.

He was the only son of the Reverend Hugh Hamilton Madden of Templemore, County Tipperary, and Isabella Mason. He married firstly in 1868 Mary Moore and secondly in 1898 Jessie Warburton. He attended Trinity College, Dublin, before being called to the Irish Bar in 1864. He became a Queen's Counsel in 1880 and Third Serjeant in 1887.

Madden wrote several books on legal topics ; but his best-known work is probably The Diary of Master William Silence; a Study of Shakespeare and of Elizabethan Sport, an imaganitive reconstruction of the world of Shakespeare's Falstaff. His scholarship led Maurice Healy to describe him as a don who had strayed into the Courts . Of his legal works the best known is Madden on Deeds, which remained the standard work on the subject for many years.

Madden was Solicitor-General for Ireland 1888-1890, and Attorney-General for Ireland in 1890-1892. He was made a member of the Privy Council of Ireland 9 December 1889. He was MP for Dublin University 1887-1892. He was subsequently Vice-Chancellor of Dublin University 1895-1919.