Courtenay Ilbert

Ilbert was born at Kingsbridge to Reverend Peregrine Arthur Ilbert and Rose Anne (daughter of George Welsh Owen) on 12 June 1841. He was educated at Marlborough College (1852–60) and at Balliol College, Oxford, where he was Hertford, Ireland, Craven, and Eldon law scholar. He graduated with first class honours in Literae Humaniores and was elected a fellow of Balliol in 1864.[1]

Ilbert married Jessie, daughter of Reverend Charles Bradley and niece of George Bradley, former headmaster of Marlborough College in 1874. They had five daughters, the oldest, Lettice Fisher became the first to head the National Council for the Unmarried Mother and her Child.[1] His fourth daughter Margaret Peregrina Ilbert (1882–1952) married Sir Arthur Cochrane of the College of Arms.

Ilbert was an outdoorsman in his youth and he climbed in Chamonix (1871 with Leslie Stephen and M. Loppe)[2] the Hekla in Iceland and the Vignemale in the Pyrenees in 1872–73 with James Bryce.[3] When Ilbert lived in Simla, at Chapslee house, he founded a Simla Natural History Society around 1885 but the organization dissolved when he left Simla in 1886.[4]

Ilbert died a few months after the death of his wife at his home in Troutwells, Buckinghamshire on 14 May 1924.[1]

Ilbert was called to bar (Lincoln's Inn) in 1869. He joined the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel, the department for drafting parliamentary bills. His expertise in drafting bills attracted the attention of Sir Henry Thring who invited him to help prepare bills. The Marquess of Ripon sought a liberal and an imaginative lawyer who could succeed the likes of Lord Macaulay, Sir Henry Maine, and Sir James Fitzjames Stephen. Ilbert was identified in this role and made a legal member of the Council of Governor-General of India from 1882–6. During this period he introduced a draft which came to be called the Ilbert Bill in 1883 for British India that proposed an amendment for existing laws in the country at the time to allow Indian judges and magistrates the jurisdiction to try British offenders in criminal cases at the District level, something that was disallowed at the time. This faced much opposition from Europeans in India as well as influential figures in England like Sir Fitzjames Stephen. The extent of Ilbert's personal beliefs in preparing this document are unknown but this draft led to a major discussions on the purpose of colonialism, the welfare of subjects, and racial equality resulting in the draft bill being modified greatly.[1]

He was appointed assistant parliamentary counsel to Treasury in 1886 and First Parliamentary Counsel in 1899. In February 1902, Ilbert was appointed Clerk of the House of Commons,[5] and he served as such until 1921.[1]

Ilbert was invested as a Knight Commander of the Order of the Star of India in 1895, as a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath in 1908, and as a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath in 1911. He was a founding Fellow of the British Academy (1903).[1]

Ilbert reflected on laws and law-making and wrote several books on parliamentary and legislative procedure and history that were highly regarded. Jurists like Sir Carleton Kemp Allen praised his knowledge of parliamentary procedure but felt he was outdated. He pointed out to how government initiatives were modified into legally actionable forms but manyconsidered Ilbert to be outdated and old-fashioned in putting faith in public opinion to exert corrective action on legislative abuses.[1]

• Ilbert, Courtenay (1901). Legislative Methods and Forms. Oxford: Henry Frowde.
• Ilbert, Courtenay (1904). Montesquieu. Oxford: Clarendon Press. The 1904 Romanes Lecture.
• Ilbert, Courtenay (1911). Parliament: Its History, Constitution and Practice (1 ed.). London: Williams and Norgate. 2nd ed, 1920. 3rd ed, Oxford, 1948.
• Ilbert, Courtenay (1912). Methods of Legislation (1 ed.). University of London Press.
• Ilbert, Courtenay (1914). The Mechanics of Law Making. New York: Columbia University Press.
• Ilbert, Courtenay (1922). The Government of India. Oxford University Press.
• Ilbert, Courtenay; Meston, James (1923). The New Constitution of India. University of London Press.

Wikisource has original works written by or about: Courtenay Ilbert

• Portraits of Courtenay Ilbert at the National Portrait Gallery, London
• Works by or about Courtenay Ilbert at Internet Archive
• To the Manor Reborn - Article in the Hindu Businessline, India (17 Jun 2011)
• Parliamentary Archives, Papers of Sir Courtenay Ilbert