Category: Courts Staff

From the Belfast Newsletter, June 16, 1916:

“FOUR COURTS OFFICIAL INJURED

STRANGE AFFAIR AT BLACKROCK

A sensational and mysterious assault is reported from Blackrock, County Dublin, the victim being Mr Francis Kennedy, Associate of the King’s Bench, and nephew of the Lord Chief Justice.

It appears that in the early hours of the morning, Mr Kennedy, who resides at Marino Park, Merrion Avenue, Blackrock, was heard by his wife to groan. She rose to go to his assistance and on looking up saw a dark figure standing over Mr Kennedy with raised arm.  Mrs Kennedy Jumped up and caught hold of the man, who seized her by the throat and attempted to strike her.  Just then Miss Kennedy, her daughter, rushed into the room, and the thief, fearing that relief was at hand, ran down the stairs and made good his escape.   

Lights were procured and it was then observed that Mr Kennedy’s head was covered with blood and he was unconscious.  Medical assistance was sought and it was found that Mr Kennedy had a deep wound on the head. The intruder had gained access through the drawing room window but many articles of value in the house were untouched.”

Mr Kennedy had been employed as a registrar at the Four Courts for the previous three decades. His was not the only legal residence to suffer a burglary in the unsettled second and third decades of the twentieth century.  On the 27^th July 1920 three men, described as soldiers, were charged with feloniously breaking into the home of Mr McLoone KC at 85 Merrion Square.  The McLoone family were away on holiday, but somebody tipped the police off.  The would-be burglars were found hiding under the bed with a quantity of ladies and gentlemen’s wearing apparel valued at £50 beside them, wrapped up in parcels ready to be taken away. 

English barristers too were susceptible to burglaries, though not all of them went to the preventive extremes taken by John Mews, of Westbourne Terrace, Paddington, who went so far as to include, in a book of instructions for his servants, a prohibition on admitting traders into the house via the side passage.  When the Mews’ cook ignored this rule, and let a greengrocer into the kitchen to take orders, he sacked her, arguing, in response to a subsequent action taken by her for back wages, that a man must be master in his own home.  The judge did not agree and found in favour of the cook.

Younger, more vigorous barristers actively welcomed the challenge of dealing with intruders.  Francis Cregoe Jenkin, a Cornish barrister, made the news in 1908 when he peaceably apprehended two burglars whilst staying at a friend’s house at Brentford. Items in the burglars’ bag included a scent fountain, a pair of pince-nez, a letter case, fourteen cigars, a pair of boots and a cap to the value of £1 19s. 

A well-known Ulster barrister, Basil McGuckin KC, of Shrewsbury Road, Dublin, likewise succeeded in capturing an intruder in his home in 1931.  A short struggle took place prior to the capture.  Mrs McGuckin was a prize-winning breeder of elkhounds, but it is not stated whether any of them played a part in defending the family home.

As for Mr Kennedy, he resigned his position in the Four Courts in September 1921, after 36 years of service.  The timing of his departure and the use of the word ‘resigned’ as opposed to ‘retired’ indicates that he may not have been a fan of the impending new regime.  His burglar was never apprehended. Could the attack on him have been politically motivated?

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From the Belfast Commercial Chronicle Dublin 2 May, 1816:

“On Tuesday evening, two young men of the names of John Goold and Michael White, had a regular pitched battle in the field near the Military Road, which terminated, after two-and-twenty rounds, by blow given by the latter to the stomach of the former, which put an end to the battle, and the life of Goold together.

These young men were the sons of two housekeepers of the Four Courts, Goold’s mother having the care of the Court of Common Pleas (today’s Court 2) and the mother of White that of the Court of Exchequer (today’s Court 3).  They had been, until lately, in strict habits of intimacy; this, however, was stopped, by some misunderstanding, which caused a good deal of bad blood to exist between them; so much so, that they never met without having a good deal of altercation, which often proceeded to blows.

At length Goold wrote a challenge to white, which was accepted, and the time and place agreed upon.  They met in the Military Road, and chose their ground in an adjoining field, each combatant being attended by some of his own friends.  After a closely contested engagement of about 29 minutes, Goold received the fatal blow as above stated.

He was carried down to the river, and plentifully sprinkled with cold water, but all efforts proving ineffectual to recover him a car was sent for, and he was conveyed to his lodgings in Liffey Street, where he expired in half an hour after his arrival.

White was taken into custody by order of the Magistrate of Mountrath Street office and yesterday Alderman Fleming attended at the lodgings of the deceased for the purpose of holding an inquest on the body when, after the Jury had been sworn, and had viewed the body, it was found necessary to adjourn to nine o’clock this day for want of a surgeon who could prove by what probable cause the deceased came by his death.

The deceased was about 21 years of age and did business as a writing clerk to an Attorney.

The other is a boy, apparently between 17 and 18, and is an apprentice to a whitesmith, in Church Street.”

The Military Road referred to was up by the Royal Hospital Kilmainham.  Many fist-fights took place in Bully’s Acre beside the Hospital over the years and many of the losing parties still lie in its graveyard.

Goold and White would have been two of that strange band of housekeepers’ children haunting the subterranean vaults below the Round Hall.  I wonder if poor young Mr Goold’s challenge to White was inspired by the tendency of legal professionals at the time to issue challenges to arms in response to any personal grievance?

Though legal duels tended to be with pistols and mercifully be over sooner.

Twenty two rounds!

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From the Freeman’s Journal, 2 June 1885:

“The prolonged absence from duty of a prominent official connected with an important department in the Four Courts has given rise to rumors more or less compromising… the official in question more than three weeks ago obtained leave of absence on account of ill-health, that he repaired to an English watering-place, whence he wrote to his family one letter.  No second communication was received, nor for the last fortnight has any tidings of his whereabouts been gleaned… The official in question has borne the highest character, and his intimate friends, while puzzled and pained at his now unaccounted for absence, still believe that it will be satisfactorily explained.”

The following day the same publication reported that

“The unaccounted for absence of an official connected with the Four Courts is now so freely and openly discussed that there is no longer any reason for withholding the name.  The gentleman is Mr Charles Henry James, who has for nearly 30 years filled the post of Official Assignee in bankruptcy.  He had the reputation of being a most careful, accurate and painstaking officer, and until this extraordinary incident there never was a question of the perfect correctness of his conduct in all the relations of life. There are some who fear that the gentleman has met with a fatal accident, or it may be committed suicide in  sudden and overmastering fit of melancholy.“

If the above was a hint to Charles Henry James he did not take it. On the 16th July 1885 he returned to his residence, Rockfield, Dundrum. Thanks to a representative of the Freeman, who called on him there the following day, we know that

“ill-health, which compelled him to obtain a doctor’s certificate entitling him to leave of absence, and was very greatly aggravated by anxiety of mind arising from business matters in his office, rendered it absolutely necessary for him to seek a long interval of repose as the alternative of an utter breakdown.  [Mr James] also expressed his thanks to the Freeman’s Journal for the tone in which it had referred to his absence, which had of course unavoidably become the subject of public comment.  The friends of Mr James will be glad to learn that he appears to have greatly gained in health and appearance by his somewhat prolonged holiday.“

In his absence Charles Henry James had been replaced as Official Assignee and a full inquiry commenced into the accounts of his office. Within two months of his return he found himself in court charged with misappropriating monies entrusted to him from various estates passing through the Bankruptcy Court.

On the 22nd October 1885, however, all charges were thrown out by a Grand Jury. Discharged from bail, Charles Henry James lived quietly until his death some decades later. His obituary described him as late Official Assignee. without reference to the extraordinary events of 1885.

The first recorded incidence of a mid-life crisis?

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From the Irish Times, 19 December 1900

“Yesterday in the Queen’s Bench Division… the case of Cooper v the Queen came on for argument… the question raised was whether the supplicant, who was crier or tipstaff of the Court of Bankruptcy, appointed by the late Judge Millar, had a permanent office, and was entitled to be kept on, notwithstanding the changes brought about by the amalgamation and consolidation of the Court of Bankruptcy with the High Court of Justice…

The supplicant submitted that the 6th section of the Bankruptcy Act 1872 conferred on all officers the right to hold their respective offices permanently and rendered them removable only if the officers were negligent, unskillful or untrustworthy in the performance of their duty.

The Crown submitted that Cooper was simply a tipstaff and that the words “officers” in the act did not necessarily include persons of the suppliant’s class.  Such an idea, the Crown argued, would be quite ridiculous…”

The Court of Queen’s Bench, and subsequently the Court of Appeal on appeal disagreed.

Cooper was held entitled to continue to receive his salary by reason of section 6 of the 1872 Act and his status as a ‘redundant crier,’ no case having ever been proved of a tipstaff losing his office by the death of the judge appointing him.

Possibly the judges were influenced by the long and loyal service of their own tipstaffs!

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