Cock, Clarke, & Huddleston

For the last few days, we've been discussing the scandalous Wiedemann v. Walpole trial. The trial was sensational in the press because of its lurid details and courtroom histrionics. Still, it wasn't just played out among faceless members of the legal community, but amid some influential and high profile courtroom stars of the day.

Here are some brief descriptions and images of the combatants in those legal battles of 1888:









Mr. Alfred Cock, Q.C., Counsel for the Plaintiff—Probably the least well-known member of the cast, Cock's Vanity Fair portrait [seen, upper left] is inscribed: "He has leathern lungs and a voice of brass." He apparently also had a terrific law library and an extensive collection of the works, portraits, and memorabilia of Sir Thomas More. The law library went to auction in 1899 following his death the previous year, and the entire More collection was gifted to London's Guildhall Library in 1903 [right] under the title, "The Alfred Cock Memorial."








Sir Edward George Clarke, Solicitor-General, Counsel for the Defendant—Clarke [seen in his Vanity Fair portrait, left] took silk in 1880 and was Solicitor-General by 1886. According to Wikipedia, his most famous cases were:

R v. Clarke and Others, 1877 (The Trial of the Detectives). Clarke secured the acquittal of Chief Inspector Clarke, the acting head of the Detective Department at Scotland Yard, on charges of corruption. Three other, more junior, police officers were convicted, and the detective division of the Metropolitan Police was completely reorganised as a result.

Gordon-Cumming v. Wilson and Others, 1891 (The Royal Baccarat Case or Tranby Croft Scandal). Clarke represented Sir William Gordon-Cumming, who sued eight people for slander after being accused of cheating at cards. The case was notorious because the Prince of Wales, later King Edward VII, had been banker during the game in which Gordon-Cumming was said to have cheated; the Prince was called as a witness, and vigorously cross-examined by Clarke. Nevertheless, Gordon-Cumming lost the case.

Wilde v Queensberry, 1895; R v Wilde, 1895. Clarke represented Oscar Wilde in his ill-advised prosecution of the Marquess of Queensberry for criminal libel. Queensberry being found not guilty, Clarke considered himself partly to blame for the tactics pursued during the trial, and when Wilde was subsequently arrested and prosecuted for homosexual practices, Clarke considered himself duty-bound to undertake the defence, which he did while refusing to accept a fee. Clarke was initially widely condemned for doing so, even within the legal profession, outraged as much by a barrister appearing without a fee as by their revulsion for Wilde, although opinions were later reversed. In the first trial, when Clarke’s conduct of the defence was described by the prosecuting counsel as “courageous and brilliant”, the jury disagreed; but Clarke was unable to persuade the jury in the re-trial against a guilty verdict.

Clarke [seated, right] also was involved in noteworthy cases like The Pimlico Mystery, The Penge Murder, and the trial of Leander Starr Jameson for his organization of the Jameson Raid in South Africa.










Sir John Walter Huddleston, or Baron Huddleston, Judge—Huddleston [seen in his Vanity Fair portrait, left], who was also a politician in Canterbury and Norwich, was called to the bar in 1839 and became a Q.C. in 1857. Wikipedia continues: Huddleston was Judge Advocate of the Fleet from 1865 to 1875 when he was made a serjeant-at-law, a judge of the Court of Common Pleas and knighted. He was almost immediately transferred to the Exchequer which itself, almost immediately, became the Exchequer Division of the High Court... As a judge of the Exchequer of pleas he was styled Baron Huddleston, in writing, Huddleston B. Soon after his appointment, the Exchequer was absorbed into the High Court of Justice and the style abolished. He sometimes referred to himself as The Last of the Barons.

Huddleston's reputation as a judge never matched his standing as an advocate. As a judge, he was opinionated and unafraid to exert a strong influence on juries. He was reputed to wear colour-coded gloves to court: black for murder, lavender for breach of promise of marriage and white for more conventional cases.

In 1884 Huddleston [seated, right] was judge at first instance in the leading maritime case of R v. Dudley and Stephens involving murder, cannibalism and the defence of necessity. He was further central to engineering the judicially approved guilty verdict against the instincts of the jury [and later falsified the court records of the case, causing it to be tried over again].

He suffered from chronic ill health during the last decade of his life before he died in South Kensington.

Interestingly, it continues: In 1872 he married Diana de Vere Beauclerk (1842–1905), daughter of William Beauclerk, 9th Duke of St Albans.

Beauclerk's brother, Captain Lord Frederick Charles Peter Beauclerk, was the grandfather of Vera Louise Beauclerk. Hence, when George Mills married Vera Beauclerk in 1925, he had married Sir John Huddleston's grandniece, Sir John and George Mills both having married a Beauclerk!

Small world, isn't it?