of appeal in ordinary from 1900 to 1905. On his first journey he was characteristically careful to take a marshal with knowledge of sessions, an experienced common law clerk, and a butler who knew circuit. Since his appointment he had been working every day from 6 a.m., and in all spare moments, at the criminal law. On his second circuit the former chief justice of the common pleas, Sir William Erle, came into court at York and subsequently wrote Lindley's praises in a letter to one of the barristers. No doubt his pupillage with special pleaders assisted Lindley, but this rapid success in criminal work could only have come to one who was a judge by nature. From the first it was obvious that, whether in civil or criminal work, Lindley would hold his own with any common law judge in England. After six years as a puisne judge Lindley commenced his twenty years' work in the Court of Appeal. For half this time he presided usually in one court or the other. His spare time seemed to be given to drafting rules, orders, and consolidating statutes, which were sometimes used by the chancellors who had asked for them, and sometimes pigeon-holed without explanation. In 1897 he succeeded Lord Esher as master of the Rolls, and became an F.R.S. and an honorary LL.D. of Cambridge. In return for his settlement of a dispute between the Royal Society and the Royal Geographical Society Captain Robert Falcon Scott [q.v.] named after him Mount Lindley, ‘very far south in the map’.
In 1900 Lindley succeeded Lord Morris as lord of appeal and was created a life peer. Had he wished he could have received a heritable title. In 1905 he fell on the steps by the Duke of York's column and suffered from concussion of the brain. Soon afterwards, on his seventy-seventh birthday, he resigned and thereafter lived a life of unostentatious usefulness at his country home in Norfolk. He died at his home, near Norwich, 9 December 1921, two days before Lord Chancellor Halsbury. They had been called in the same year (1850) and had lived to the ages of ninety-three and ninety-eight respectively. Of his nine children, four sons and two daughters survived him.
Lord Lindley's reputation stands very high among lawyers, though he was little known to the world. The record of such a man is found in his work. To sit in court, term in and term out, for thirty years, and decide numberless cases with satisfaction to litigants and improvement to their counsel, implies great gifts of intellect and disposition. He brought to his task a quick and logical intellect, an unwillingness to talk, and a disposition which could not be soured. He had none of the picturesqueness of Lord Justice James or the brilliance of Lord Bowen or the refulgent rhetoric of Lord Macnaghten. In manner he was unostentatious and unpretentious. A remarkable characteristic was his versatility. He appeared to have no speciality. Whether dealing with a one-man company, or the right of houses to support, or stock-exchange gambling, or the eccentricities of the river Ouse, or peaceful pickets, he was at home with his subject. Nothing seemed simpler. He merely stated the facts correctly and applied to them the proper principles of law; and impartiality was his foible.
A bust portrait of Lord Lindley in a wig was painted by W. W. Ouless, R.A., in 1897 (Royal Academy Pictures, 1897).
[The Times, 12 December 1921; unpublished Autobiography of Lord Lindley; personal knowledge.]
LINDSAY, JAMES LUDOVIC, twenty-sixth Earl of Crawford and
ninth Earl of Balcarres (1847–1913), astronomer, collector, and bibliophile, the only son of Alexander William Crawford Lindsay [q.v.], twenty-fifth Earl of Crawford and eighth Earl of Balcarres, by his wife, Margaret, eldest daughter of Lieutenant-General James Lindsay, of Balcarres, was born at St. Germain-en-Laye 28 July 1847. He was educated at Eton, and after a short residence at Trinity College, Cambridge, entered the Grenadier Guards, but resigned his commission after being elected (1874) M.P. for Wigan, a seat which he held until he succeeded to his father's earldom in 1880. Attracted to astronomy, he organized a station at Cadiz in 1870 for observing the eclipse of the sun, on which occasion he rendered valuable assistance to an expedition sent by the British government. In 1872 he erected an observatory, equipped with the newest telescopes, at Dunecht, near Aberdeen, and made acquaintance with Mr. (afterwards Sir David) Gill [q.v.] who became a distinguished assistant in its management. In 1874 Lord Lindsay, with Mr. Gill and Dr. Ralph Copeland [q.v.], proceeded to Mauritius to observe the transit of Venus. Equipped with instruments at great expense by the twenty-fifth Earl of Crawford, they were enabled, though the observation was marred by clouds, to report valuable data for the determination of longitudes and the
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