The Hon. Sir Francis W. Maclean, K.C.I.E., K.C.,
Chief Justice of Bengal.
THE HON. SIR FRANCIS W. MACLEAN, K.C.I.E., K.C., Chief Justice of Bengal, is the third surviving son of the late Alexander Maclean, Esq., of Barrow Hedges, Carshalton, Surrey, and was born in December, 1844. He was educated at Westminster and Trinity College, Cambridge, at which University he graduated B. A., in the Classical Tripos of 1866, and M.A., in 1870. After taking his degree in 1866, he entered on the study of the Law, becoming a pupil of Mr. Lindley (now Lord Lindley), one of the Lords of Appeal in ordinary. Called to the Bar by the Inner Temple in 1868, he practised at the Chancery and Parliamentary Bars, was appointed a Queen's Counsel by the late Lord Herschell in 1886, and elected a Bencher of his Inn in 1892. At the General Election of 1885, as a Liberal and follower of Mr. Gladstone, he was returned to the House of Commons, as member for the Woodstock Division of Oxfordshire. In 1886 he declined to follow that distinguished statesman in his Home Rule Policy, and joining the Liberal Unionist Party under the leadership of Lord Hartington, was returned unopposed for his old constituency at the General Election of that year. He spoke but seldom in the House of Commons, but was a frequent speaker on political platforms through out the country, and accompanied Mr. Chamberlain on his tour through Ulster in 1888. In the same year he was appointed a member of the Royal Commission on Market Rights and Tolls. In 1891, upon accepting the office of a Master in Lunacy, vacated by the appointment of Sir Alexander Miller, c.s.i., to be Legal Member of the Viceroy's Council, he resigned his seat in Parliament. In 1896 he was appointed Chief Justice of Bengal, was knighted at Balmoral in October of that year, and assumed office at Calcutta in the following November. Early in 1897, he was invited by the Earl of Elgin to become Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Indian Famine Charitable Relief Fund, and in recognition of his services in that capacity was created a Knight Commander of the Indian Empire in 1898. He was appointed Vice-Chancellor of the University of Calcutta in the same year. In 1900 he again accepted, at the instance of Lord Curzon, then Viceroy of India, the Chairmanship of the Executive Committee of the Indian Famine Charitable Relief Fund, and in 1901 was amongst the first Recipients of the Kaiser-i-Hind Gold Medal, for his public services to India in connection with the Famine of 1900-1901.
