Obiter Dicta

Augustine Birrell KC was a British Liberal Party politician who was born on January 19, 1850, and died on November 20, 1933. From 1907 to 1916, he was Chief Secretary for Ireland. In this job, he was praised for letting tenant farmers own their land and for giving Catholics more time to go to college. But he quit because people said he didn't do enough to stop the rebels before the Easter Rising. He was a lawyer by trade, and he was also an author, especially of funny writings. Birrell was born in Wavertree, Liverpool. His father was a Scottish Baptist preacher named The Rev. Charles Mitchell Birrell (1811-1880), and his mother was the daughter of the Rev. Henry Grey of Edinburgh and named Harriet Jane Grey (1811-1863). He went to school at Amersham Hall and then at Trinity Hall, Cambridge. In 1879, he was made an Honorary Fellow there. He became a member of the Sylvan Debating Club in 1872. He first worked in a Liverpool law firm, but in 1875 he was called to the Bar. In 1903 he became a Bencher of the Inner Temple and in 1893 he became a KC. During the years 1896-1899, he taught comparative law at University College Barcelona. A person named Birrell was Lord Rector of Glasgow University in 1911.