William Whitshed

He was born in Dublin to a long established family of Dublin merchants who played a prominent part in politics; his father Thomas Whitshed (1645- 1697) sat in the Irish House of Commons as member for Carysfort and was also a practicing barrister.[4] His mother was Mary Quin, daughter of Mark Quin, who became one of Dublin's richest citizens and was Lord Mayor of Dublin 1667-8, and his wife Mary Roche. William was the eldest of thirteen children. His grandfather Mark Quin had committed suicide in 1674 by cutting his throat with a razor in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, reputedly because he believed that his wife was unfaithful to him, a fact which Swift and other enemies of Whitshed later seized on to embarrass him. James Quin, one of the most famous actors of his time, was the son of Whitsed's uncle, the elder James Quin (died 1710), another barrister. The younger James unsuccessfully claimed a share of the Quin fortune, but could not prove that his parents had been lawfully married.

James Quin, the leading actor, who was Whitshed's first cousin

Whitshed entered Middle Temple in 1694 and was called to the Irish Bar. He did not have any great reputation as a lawyer or politician and his rapid rise to power caused some surprise;[5] in particular, his elevation to the office of Lord Chief Justice when he was little more than 35 years old was most unusual, if not unprecedented. Ball attributes his success to his family's wealth and political connections, and the friendship of William King, Archbishop of Dublin, who had considerable though not unlimited influence over judicial appointments.

Whitshed's ambition was by I no means satisfied by becoming Chief Justice: he hoped with Archbishop King's support to become Lord Chancellor of Ireland, and it may have been this ambition which led him into the conflict with Jonathan Swift which so greatly harmed his reputation. In 1720 he presided at the trial of Edward Waters for seditious libel, in that he had printed Swift's pamphlet On the Universal Use of Irish Manufacture. The result was something of an embarrassment since while Waters was found guilty, this was only after the jury had tried nine times to bring in a verdict of not guilty. Swift, quite unperturbed, contented himself with satirising Whitshed and Godfrey Boate, the junior judge at the trial.[6]

In 1724 the Crown moved against Swift again. John Harding, the printer of the Drapier Letters, was arrested and efforts were made to identify and apprehend "Drapier" (although there was can have been little doubt in Government circles as to his real identity). Whitshed was pressed into service to persuade a grand jury to find that the Drapier Letters were seditious.[7] This time the result was complete failure: although Whitshed spared no efforts, interviewing the jurors individually, they refused to give a guilty verdict.[8]

Swift, by now thoroughly enraged, attacked Whitshed in a series of verses, notably Verses Occasioned by Whitshed's motto on his Coach, with a venom which few judges have ever had to endure. Swift's friends joined the battle, and even painful personal details like the suicide of Whitshed's grandfather, and his grandmother's supposed adultery, were dragged up: "In church your grandsire cut his throat.... [your] grandame had gallants by the twenties, and bore your mother to a prentice".[9] The Government, embarrassed by the whole affair and conscious that public opinion was on Swift's side, did little to protect their Chief Justice.

Whitshed's hopes of becoming Lord Chancellor were never realised: his patron Archbishop King was steadily losing influence to Hugh Boulter, Archbishop of Armagh, who was not an admirer of Whitshed. Further the Swift affair had made him bitterly unpopular: it was said frankly that it was impossible for a man so detested to be Lord Chancellor. In 1726 he asked to be transferred to the Court of Common Pleas (Ireland), saying that the burden of his office was becoming too much for him as he aged. The following year it was decided to make him Chief Justice of the Irish Common Pleas, but he died suddenly, aged only 48, shortly afterwards. His early death was blamed by some of his friends on the toll taken by vicious personal attacks on him by Swift and his supporters. He was unmarried and had no children: his estate passed to his next surviving brother.[10]

While Swift's hatred of him is quite understandable, Ball notes that Whitshed as a young man was generally well-liked, although he became extremely unpopular in later life.[11] On the other hand another legal historian, Bartholomew Duhigg, accused Whitshed of deciding cases on the basis of personal prejudice and malice, although he accepts that the judge did not take bribes and that his personal life was blameless.[12]