Sir John Ross, 1st Baronet

Sir John Ross, 1st Baronet, PC, QC (1853–1935) was an Irish judge who was the last person to hold the office of Lord Chancellor of Ireland.

He was born in Derry, Northern Ireland, on 11 December 1853. He was the eldest son of the Reverend Robert Ross DD, Presbyterian Minister and, at one time, Moderator of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland. He was educated at the model school and at Foyle College, Derry, where the songwriter Percy French was one of his schoolfriends. In 1873 he entered Trinity College, Dublin. He became president of the University Philosophical Society in 1877 and graduated BA in the same year; in 1878 he was auditor of the College Historical Society, where his contemporaries included the politician and judge Edward Carson (later Lord Carson) and James Campbell (the future Lord Glenavy, Lord Chancellor of Ireland). He graduated with a Bachelor of Laws (LL. B.) degree in 1879.

Ross had entered Gray's Inn, London, in 1878 and was called to the Irish bar in 1879. He became a Queen's Counsel in 1889. He was Conservative member of the House of Commons for Londonderry City from 1892 until his defeat in 1895. In 1896 Ross was elevated to the bench as land judge in the Chancery Division of the High Court of Justice in Ireland. When appointed, he was the youngest judge in the United Kingdom and he was the first Presbyterian judge of the High Court. Maurice Healy noted that he was as scrupulous in avoiding any suggestion of religious bias as he was in not allowing his own political views to colour his judgement. While his main training was in equity, he was also a good criminal lawyer.

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