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Lot Essay
Commissioner Robert Malcolm Kerr (1821-1902), Judge, was the son of John Kerr (1791-1853), a writer in Glasgow, and Elizabeth Malcolm. Robert was educated at Glasgow University before going on to marry and to become a barrister in Lincoln's Inn. He was a Judge at the Guildhall Court in the City of London for forty-three years. He twice failed to get into Parliament, and despite being offered an extremely generous pension, he refused to retire from his position at the City of London Court. He died in 1902.
He administers a kind of rough and ready justice that irritates many and pleases few. His worst faults are his inclination to decide cases when only part heard and his occasional disregard of the existing state of the Law. For years he has successfully defied the High Court by persisting in refusal to trouble himself by taking notes of his cases. He does not believe in juries, and it is his special delight to ridicule the Mayor's Court which sits over the way.
Vanity Fair, 'Judges', No. 59, 1900.
He administers a kind of rough and ready justice that irritates many and pleases few. His worst faults are his inclination to decide cases when only part heard and his occasional disregard of the existing state of the Law. For years he has successfully defied the High Court by persisting in refusal to trouble himself by taking notes of his cases. He does not believe in juries, and it is his special delight to ridicule the Mayor's Court which sits over the way.
Vanity Fair, 'Judges', No. 59, 1900.