John Gorrie (judge)

Sir John Gorrie KB (30 March 1829 – 4 August 1892) was a British judge who served through the British colonies of the nineteenth century.

John Gorrie was born in the parish of Kingskettle, Fife, Scotland, a son of the Rev. Daniel Gorrie, United Presbyterian Minister, and Jane Moffat. He was educated at the village school, subsequently at Madras College, St Andrews, and then at the University of Edinburgh. He was called to the Scottish Bar in 1856. Sir John's advocacy that the volunteer movement should be made a national one, by including all ranks of the people, that force owed a great deal at its start. At the request of the Lord Provost of Edinburgh he himself raised a couple of artisan companies of 100 men each in a single day, and this continued until a whole battalion was formed out of similar materials. The example of Edinburgh was quickly followed throughout the country, and the impulse then given has never been lost. In 1862 he became a leader-writer on the The Morning Star, having as colleagues many men who subsequently distinguished themselves in literature and politics.

In 1865, on the news reaching the UK of the disturbances in Jamaica, which led ultimately to the removal and attempted trial of Governor Edward Eyre, Gorrie was invited by the Jamaica Committee to go out to represent them before the Royal Commission in the colony. This service, which extended over several months, having been performed to the entire satisfaction of his constituents, Gorrie returned to his usual vocations in London until 1868, when he offered his services to the Border Burghs. Finding, however, that his candidature would split up the advanced Liberal party, a portion of whom considered themselves pledged to Sir George (then Mr. Trevelyan), he withdrew.

In 1869, Gorrie was offered and accepted the post of Substitute Procureur-General in Mauritius, and a few months after his arrival became a Puisne judge. He was a member of a Commission that discovered an extraordinary system of legal oppression upon natives of India who had completed their indentures as coolies, and he also showed how properties were wasted by legal costs, because of the officials misunderstanding the spirit and meaning of the local ordinances. Gorrie boldly protected the Creoles and coolies alike from all attempted oppression.

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