Alexander Kinnear, 1st Baron Kinnear

Alexander Smith Kinnear, 1st Baron Kinnear PC LLD FRSE (3 November 1833, Edinburgh – 20 December 1917, Edinburgh) was a Scottish advocate and judge. He served as Lord of Council and Session (1882–1913), and was appointed to the Privy Council in 1911.

He was born in Glasgow the son of John Gardner Kinnear FRSE, a businessman and founder of John G. Kinnear & Co, commission merchants based at 17 St Vincent Place in the city centre. The family lived at 137 Clarence Place in Glasgow. His uncle was James Kinnear FRSE (1810-1849). All were descended from the Edinburgh banking firm of Thomas Kinnear and Sons.

He was educated at Glasgow and Edinburgh universities, and was called to the Scottish bar in 1856. For some years he acted as a law reporter, but in 1878 he was chosen leading counsel in the Court of Session for the liquidators in the case arising out of the failure of the City of Glasgow Bank, and henceforward his rise was rapid. In 1881 he became a Q.C., and the same year was chosen Dean of the Faculty of Advocates. In 1882 he was made a judge, with the courtesy title of Lord Kinnear, and in 1890 an appellate judge, retiring from the Court of Session in 1913, although he continued to sit in the House of Lords as a lord of appeal. He was a member of the commission of 1904 for settling the question of the division of Scottish church property.

In 1883 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. His proposers were James Moncrieff, Lord Moncrieff, Alexander Crum Brown, Peter Guthrie Tait, and Alexander Forbes Irvine. He was awarded honorary doctorates (LLD) from Edinburgh University in 1878 and Glasgow University in 1894.

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