Hardinge Stanley Giffard, 1st Earl of Halsbury (3 September 1823 – 11 December 1921) was a British barrister and Conservative politician. He served three times as Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain, for a total of seventeen years, a record not equalled by anyone except Lords Hardwicke and Eldon.
The son of a newspaper editor, Giffard was called to the English bar in 1850 and acquired a large criminal practice, defending the likes of Governor Eyre and Arthur Orton, the Tichborne claimant. He was chosen as solicitor-general by Disraeli in 1874, despite not securing a seat in the House of Commons until three years later. In 1885, he was appointed to the lord chancellorship by Lord Salisbury, and was created Baron Halsbury, serving until the following year. He then held the lord chancellorship again from 1886 until 1892, and from 1895 until 1905, when he resigned, aged 86. In 1898, he was further honoured with an earldom and a viscounty, becoming the Earl of Halsbury. During his time at Merton, he rowed in four seat of the Merton College Boat Club in 1844. His mother died when he was five, and his father married his cousin, Mary Anne Giffard. He was educated by his father at home, before entering Merton College, Oxford, where he obtained a fourth-class degree in literae humaniores in 1845. Between 1845 and 1848, he helped his father edit the Standard. He also failed to gain a seat in a by-election in Horsham in 1876.
In 1877 he succeeded in obtaining a seat, when he was returned for Launceston, which he continued to represent until his elevation to the peerage.
Later career and leader of the "ditchers", 1905–1921
During the crisis over the Parliament Act 1911, Halsbury was one of the principal leaders of the rebel faction of Tory peers—labelled the "Ditchers"—that resolved on all out opposition to the government's bill limiting the House of Lords' veto whatever happened. At a meeting of Conservative peers on 21 July of that year, Halsbury shouted out "I will divide even if I am alone". As Halsbury left the meeting a reporter asked him what was going to happen. Halsbury immediately replied: "Government by a Cabinet controlled by rank socialists".
Halsbury was also President of the Royal Society of Literature, Grand Warden of English Freemasons, and High Steward of the University of Oxford, and warden of guild of undergraduates in University of Birmingham.
- Bray v Ford [1896] AC 44
- Taff Vale Railway Co v Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants [1901] AC 426
- Daimler Co Ltd v Continental Tyre and Rubber Co (Great Britain) Ltd [1916] 2 AC 307
References
</references>