LORD CARSON OF DUNCAIRN
MASTER TIMOTHY SALOMAN
Lord Carson of Duncairn (1854-1935)
Barrister, Statesman and Judge Master Timothy Saloman was Called to the Bar in 1975 and educated in Classics and Law at Lincoln College, Oxford. A specialist practitioner in shipping law at 7KBW, he took Silk in 1993 and served many years as a Recorder of the Crown Court. He was made a Bencher in 2003 and, in 2020, Master of the House.
Among the pleasures of being the Master of the House is overseeing the Inn’s portraits, a task which allows reflection on the lives of their subjects. Distinguished figures in the Inn’s life, present and past, are, of course, not only visible to us in portraits. They are also memorialised in the fine, oak armorial panels decorating our glorious Hall, and in our stained-glass windows, whence the coats of arms of many Middle Templars, Royalty and Peers, including Lord Carson of Duncairn, gleam down on us as we dine. Of the Inn’s portraits, the largest and grandest are undoubtedly those of the seven Kings and Queens who dominate the west end of Hall. However, it is in and around our Bench Apartments that hang the portraits of our memorable lawyers, barristers and judges; and in the Ashley Building, where currently hangs the Inn’s portrait of Lord Carson by P.A. De Laszlo, painted in 1933. Why, then, is Edward Henry Carson my subject? First and foremost, for us lawyers, Carson was an outstandingly successful barrister, who as an advocate achieved eminence and nationwide celebrity; first, in Ireland between 1877 and 1892, and then at our Bar, before sitting as a Law Lord from 1921 to 1929.
Carson: The Man Who Divided Ireland – by Geoffrey Lewis
Second, because for all of Carson’s success in the law, it was in politics that he had the greatest impact on the nation: as the leader and champion of the Ulster Unionists’ cause, battling against the 2nd and 3rd Home Rule Bills, and securing Ulster’s status as part of the United Kingdom and its then Empire. Views on the merits of that impact sharply diverge, but in reviewing the careers of Middle Templars from our past, every impact at the highest level may command our interest, and, with Carson, his impact was colossal. One may ask: what other actively practising Middle Temple barrister or judge stands immortalised by a towering statue, in a major city, dominating its Parliament Buildings, as Carson, in Belfast, has since 1933? An Irishman, born in Dublin, and called at the King’s Inns in 1877, Carson gained a reputation as a brilliant jury advocate and all-round barrister, famous for prosecuting agrarian crimes in prominent, politically charged cases. He was invariably victorious and always fearless; in spite of the mob violence his cases would attract outside (and sometimes inside!) his courts. From the Parliamentary Nationalists, Fenians and agitators who deplored, but respected, these successes, Carson attracted the sobriquet ‘Coercion Carson’; during the 1880’s, he also attracted the friendship and political patronage of the society lioness, Lady Londonderry; forged a life-altering friendship with the Conservative, AJ Balfour; and, by 1889, became the youngest ever Irish QC. In 1892, Carson was elected as the Liberal Unionist MP for Dublin University, and appointed Solicitor General for Ireland. Soon afterwards, Carson was introduced to Charles Darling QC MP, who persuaded Carson to seek re-admission to our Inn and to practise here.
Portrait of Lord Carson by P.A. De Laszlo, painted in 1933
‘You let me paint your name outside my Chambers’, said Darling, ‘and you’ll have five times my practice within a year’. ‘I know I won’t’, Carson said, ‘but I’ll bet you a shilling’. A year later, Darling was proved right, and Carson discharged his bet with the gift of a silver-mounted blackthorn stick, inscribed ‘CD, from EC, 1894’.
2020 Middle Templar
25
