William Halsey (judge)

William Halsey (died after 1672) was a politician, soldier and judge in seventeenth-century Ireland. He was Mayor of Waterford, a member of each of the three Protectorate Parliaments, and the last Chief Justice of Munster.[1]

Little seems to be known of his origins or his early life, although his close links with the city of Waterford are said to have been recent.[2] He is first heard of as a captain in the Cromwellian Army. After the triumph of the Cromwellian cause in Ireland in 1650-51 he was awarded several confiscated Royalist estates. He became a substantial landowner in County Tipperary and County Kilkenny;[3] later he moved to Waterford. He became prominent in the public life of Waterford city, and served as its Mayor in 1661-2. As Mayor he is on record as having conducted an inquiry in 1661 into the condition of the city Lazar house ( leper house).[4]

He was almost certainly a qualified barrister, and served in several judicial and quasi-judicial offices.[5] The Provincial Court of Munster, which had lapsed during the political turmoil of the 1640s, was briefly revived with the regicide John Cook as Chief Justice and Halsey as second justice.[6] He sat with Cook on a special court at Mallow to hear pleas against transplantation to Connacht by citizens of Cork, Youghal and Kinsale, and he sat in 1656 on the special court which sat at Athlone to hear similar pleas. He was commissioner for revenue for the district of Waterford. In 1655 he was appointed to the Commission for the Peace for County Wexford.[7] He acted as Clerk of the Crown and Hanaper in the Four Courts, although the office had already been granted to George Carleton.[8]

He sat in each of the three Protectorate Parliaments as member for the newly combined constituency of Waterford city and Clonmel. He was one of the "kinglings" i.e. the party in Parliament which unsuccessfully urged Oliver Cromwell to accept the English Crown in 1657.

Given his record of unswerving loyalty to Cromwell, and in particular his involvement in the effort to persuade him to accept the Crown, it is remarkable that his career continued to flourish after the Restoration of Charles II. Despite attacks on his loyalty to the Crown by his political enemies, he seems to have been generally regarded as a man of integrity.[9] This may partly account for his survival: in any case Charles II adopted a conscious policy of reconciliation with his former enemies. Halsey also enjoyed the patronage of Roger Boyle, 1st Earl of Orrery, the new Lord President of Munster, whose family were the dominant political force in Munster. In addition to being Mayor of Waterford he returned to the Provincial Court of Munster as Chief Justice and remained in that office until the Court was abolished in 1672.[10] His date of death is not recorded.