BRAMPTON, HENRY HAWKINS, BARON (1817-1907) , English judge, was born at Hitchin on Sept. 14, 1817. Called to the bar at the Middle Temple in 1843, he joined the old home cir cuit and took silk in 1859. He was counsel in many of the famous trials of the reign of Queen Victoria: for example, in the Simon Bernard case (the Orsini plot) ; Roupell v. Waite; the Overend Gurney prosecutions; the convent case Saurin v. Star, 1869; the two Tichborne trials (1871-74) (see TIcRB0RNE CLAIMANT), and the will case of Sugden v. Lord St. Leonards. Hawkins was raised to the bench in 1876, and assigned to the then exchequer division of the High Court, not as baron (an appellation which was being abolished by the Judicature Act), but with the title of Sir Henry Hawkins. He was a great advocate rather than a great lawyer. His searching voice, his manner, and the variety of his facial ex pression, gave him a persuasive influence with juries, and as a cross examiner he was not surpassed. His knowledge of the criminal law was intimate, the reputation he gained as a "hanging" judge making him a terror to evil-doers. One of his earliest murder trials—the Penge case, The Reg. v. Staunton and Rhodes (1878),—aroused great controversy; four persons, two of them women, were sentenced to death but respited, one (Alice Rhodes), receiving a full pardon. For his conduct in this case, and, indeed, for the general tenor of his judicial career, he has been severely criticized by one of the greatest advocates of the Bar, Sir Edward Clarke, who was counsel in that case (see The Story of My Life, by Sir Edward Clarke, 1918). In 1898 he retired from the bench, and was raised to the peerage under the title of Baron Brampton. He frequently took part in determining House of Lords appeals.
Brampton died in London on Oct. 6, 1907. His own Reminiscences (1904, 2 vols.), ed. by Richard Harris, K.C., do Lord Brampton less than justice.