Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

The G.C.V.O. insignia awarded to Lord James of Hereford, P.C., Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster

The Royal Victorian Order, G.C.V.O., Knight Grand Cross, set of insignia comprising sash badge, silver-gilt and enamels, and breast star, silver, silver-gilt and enamels, both pieces officially numbered ‘19’, the reverse of the badge additionally engraved ‘Lord James of Hereford, P.C., Chancellor Duchy of Lancaster, 22 August 1902, complete with full dress sash, this stained in parts, otherwise extremely fine (2) £1,400-£1,800

Provenance: Buckland Dix & Wood, June 1991.

Henry James, first Lord James of Hereford 1828-1911, lawyer and statesman, was born at Hereford on 30 October 1828, third and youngest son of Philip Turner James, surgeon, of Hereford. He was educated at Cheltenham College, which was opened in 1841, and was the first boy on the roll. In after years he was president of the council of governors of the school, and founded the James of Hereford entrance scholarships, primarily for Herefordshire boys. At school he played in the cricket elevens of 1844 and 1845, and never lost his interest in the game, playing occasionally for the old boys, and becoming president of the M.C.C. in 1889. He gained no special distinction in school studies, and on leaving began training as an engineer, but soon joined the Middle Temple as a student in January 1849. He was lecturer's prizeman in 1850 and 1851, and was one of the earliest and foremost members of the Hardwicke Debating Society, where he developed a power of lucid speaking.

Called to the bar in 1852, he joined the Oxford circuit. His rise at the bar was not rapid; he practised at first mainly in the mayor's court, of which he became leader. Comparatively early in his career he became known to Sir John Hollams and through him obtained much commercial work at the Guildhall. In 1867, after fifteen years at the bar, he was appointed postman of the Court of Exchequer, an office now extinct, and became a Q.C. in 1869. The following year he was elected bencher of his Inn, and in 1888 served as treasurer. In 1869 James entered the House of Commons as liberal member for Taunton. There he came to the front more quickly than at the bar and was soon a prominent figure on the ministerial side below the gangway, occasionally criticising his leaders with effect. As a parliamentary speaker he was rarely brief, but he held the ear of the house. In 1870 he joined Sir Henry Drummond Wolff in an expedition to the seat of the Franco-Prussian war, and came under the fire of French artillery at Strassbourg. In Sept. 1873 he became solicitor-general in Gladstone's government and was knighted. Two months later, when the attorney-general became lord chief justice, James succeeded him. Parliament was dissolved immediately afterwards, and James was re-elected for Taunton, but the defeat of his party deprived him of office. While in opposition, he was active in debate, and when Gladstone returned to office after the general election of 1880, James, who retained his seat for Taunton, again became attorney-general and held the post until the liberal government went out in 1885. James performed both his political and professional work with unsparing energy. In parliament his chief exploit was the drafting and carrying through its various stages the corrupt practices bill of 1883. He had already championed the cause of electoral purity, and his skill and temper in the conduct of his bill evoked Gladstone''s admiration. On 24 June 1885, he was made a privy councillor. At the general election of 1885, after the new reform bill had become law, he was returned as member for Bury in Lancashire, and he represented that constituency for the rest of his time in the House of Commons. When Gladstone declared for home rule early in 1886, James declared unhesitatingly against the change of Irish policy. Gladstone offered him first the lord chancellorship and then the home secretaryship in his new ministry, but James, with rare self-denial, declined both. He was already a warm intimate friend of Lord Hartington (afterwards duke of Devonshire), and with him he thenceforward acted in close personal sympathy, becoming a leader of the newly formed liberal-unionist party. Returned for Bury at the elections of 1886 and 1892, James, now a private member of parliament, continued his private practice at the bar.

From 1892 to 1895 he acted as attorney-general of the Duchy of Cornwall to King Edward VII, then Prince of Wales, with whom he had formed a close intimacy. In 1892 he was made hon. LL.D. of Cambridge. On 22 April 1893, James spoke at great length against Gladstone's home rule bill, and in February 1895 he, on behalf of the Lancashire cotton spinners, led the opposition to the liberal government's proposal to reimpose duties on cotton imported into India. On the return of the unionists to power in August 1895, James was raised to the peerage as Lord James of Hereford, and for the first time became a cabinet minister holding the office of chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster in the unionist administration. In 1896 he joined the judicial committee of the privy council, and took part in the judicial work of that body as well as of the House of Lords. He resigned his position on the judicial committee before his death.

As arbitrator in industrial disputes, and notably as chairman of the coal conciliation board from 1898 to 1909, he gave a series of important decisions, which were accepted by all parties without demur. Between 1895 and 1902 he sat, too, on a committee of the privy council appointed to deal with university education in the north of England. James resigned office in July 1902, when Mr. Balfour succeeded Lord Salisbury as prime minister. In the same year he was made G.C.V.O. The following year, when Mr. Chamberlain formulated his policy of tariff reform, James declared his resolute adherence to the principle of free trade. As in the home rule crisis, he acted with the duke of Devonshire, and stiffened the latter in his opposition to the new policy. In November 1909 he opposed, as unconstitutional, the rejection of the budget by the House of Lords. During his later years he took much interest in the Imperial Institute, and was for a long time chairman of the advisory committee. A good sportsman, especially with the gun, he maintained through life a large circle of friends. King Edward VII was constantly a guest at his shooting parties. He was an intimate friend of Millais; he knew Dickens, Charles Reade, Tom Taylor, and other men eminent in literature or art, although he had few intellectual interests outside his profession. He was munificent in private charity. He died on 18 August 1911, at Kingswood Warren, near Epsom. Previously he had made his country home at Breamore, near Salisbury, and there he was buried in the parish churchyard. He was unmarried, and the peerage became extinct at his death. A portrait by Mr. J. St. H. Lander is in the Benchers'' Rooms at the Middle Temple, and there are other portraits at the Devonshire Club and at Cheltenham College, where a fund in his memory for the endowment of Cheltenham College was inaugurated in July 1912.