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William Baliol Brett, 1st Viscount Esher

The Right Honourable
The Viscount Esher
PC QC
William Baliol Brett.jpg
Lord Esher by John Everett Millais.
Solicitor-General
In office
10 February 1868 – 16 September 1868
Monarch Victoria
Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli
Preceded by Sir Charles Jasper Selwyn
Succeeded by Sir Richard Baggallay
Master of the Rolls
In office
April 1883 – 1897
Monarch Victoria
Preceded by Sir George Jessel
Succeeded by Sir Nathaniel Lindley
Personal details
Born 13 August 1815
Died 24 May 1899 (1899-05-25) (aged 83)
London, England
Nationality British
Political party Conservative
Spouse(s) Eugénie Mayer (1814–1904)
Alma mater King's College London
Caius College, Cambridge

William Baliol Brett, 1st Viscount Esher PC, QC (13 August 1815 – 24 May 1899), known as Sir William Brett between 1868 and 1883, was a British lawyer, judge, and Conservative politician. He was briefly Solicitor-General under Benjamin Disraeli and then served as a justice of the Court of Common Pleas between 1868 and 1876, as a Lord Justice of Appeal between 1876 and 1883 and as Master of the Rolls. He was raised to the peerage as Baron Esher in 1885 and further honoured when he was made Viscount Esher on his retirement in 1897.

Brett was a son of the Reverend Joseph George Brett, of Chelsea, London, by Dorothy, daughter of George Best, of Chilston Park, Boughton Malherbe, Kent. He was educated at Westminster School, King's College London and at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. Brett rowed for Cambridge University Boat Club against Leander Club in 1837 and 1838, then in the victorious Cambridge crew against Oxford University in the 1839 Boat Race.

Called to the Bar in 1840, Brett went to the northern circuit, and became a Queen's Counsel in 1861. On the death of Richard Cobden in 1865 he unsuccessfully contested Rochdale as a Conservative, but in 1866 was returned for Helston in unique circumstances. He and his opponent polled exactly the same number of votes, whereupon the mayor, as returning officer, gave his casting vote for the Liberal candidate. As this vote was given after four o'clock, however, an appeal was lodged, and the House of Commons allowed both members to take their seats.


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