John Jackson Smale

Sir John Jackson Smale (1 March 1805 – 13 August 1882) was a British lawyer and judge. He served as Attorney General and Chief Justice of Hong Kong in the 19th Century.

Smale was born on 1 March 1805 in Devon, England. He was the son of John Smale.

He studied in Manchester and the Inner Temple. He was admitted by the Inner Temple in 1828 but then qualified and practised as a solicitor. He was called to the bar of the Inner Temple in 1842. He practised at the Chancery Bar for eleven years from 1846 to 1857 and was noted as a law reporter, being one of the joint authors of "De Gex and Smale" (Reports of Cases decided in the High Court of Chancery, by Knight-Bruce, V.C., and Parker, V.C., 1849–1853, 5 vols., with John Peter De Gex), and "Smale and Gifford".

In 1860 he was appointed Attorney General of Hong Kong. He arrived in Hong Kong Kong on 22 April 1861. On 14 June 1861, he was appointed as a member of the Hong Kong Legislative Council. As Attorney General he was allowed to maintain a private practice and practised with much success.

In 1866 he was appointed as Chief Justice of Hong Kong replacing William Henry Adams who had died in office. He served as Chief Justice until his retirement in 1881.

As Chief Justice he was described as "somewhat lacking in the qualities necessary to maintain the dignity of his high office." He was said to be "naturally of a temperament singularly impulsive and energetic and never succeeded in sinking the man and his natural propensities in the Judge; the consequence was that from time to time objectionable and occasionally disgraceful scenes were presented in court."

The best example of this was the case of Pollard v The Chief Justice of Hong Kong where the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council overturned a finding of contempt Smale had made against Edward Pollard QC on the basis that Smale had not told Pollard what the alleged contempts were before convicting him.

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