Background
Robert Bishop was born on March 30, 1834, in Medfield, Massachussets, Unitied States, the son of Jonathan Parker and Eliza (Harding) Bishop. The father was a country lawyer who lived on a farm and had sat in the state legislature.
Robert Bishop was born on March 30, 1834, in Medfield, Massachussets, Unitied States, the son of Jonathan Parker and Eliza (Harding) Bishop. The father was a country lawyer who lived on a farm and had sat in the state legislature.
At the age of sixteen Robert entered Phillips Academy, Andover, working his way through school and learning the meaning of scholarship under a great teacher, Samuel H. Taylor. Graduating in 1854, he studied law with the firm of Brooks and Ball, in Boston, simultaneously pursuing the regular course at Harvard Law School, from which he took a degree in 1857.
In 1861 Bishop moved to Newton, Massachussets, where he spent the remainder of his life. For a brief period, while establishing himself in his profession, he was a law reporter for the Boston Daily Advertiser. In 1861 he associated himself with Thornton K. Lothrop in the firm of Lothrop & Bishop, which conducted many important litigations before its dissolution in 1879.
Bishop entered public life as a Republican in 1874, through an election to the Massachusetts House of Representatives, but he declined a second term because of his duties as a member of the Newton Water Board, which was then completing a system of waterworks for that city. He became a state senator in 1878 and was reelected for three successive years. During his term of office he published The Senate of Massachusetts: an Historical Sketch (1882), which is the authoritative book on the subject.
In 1882, after a contest in the Republican convention at Worcester, Bishop received the nomination of his party for governor. The Democratic candidate was the aggressive Benjamin F. Butler, who, in an acrimonious campaign, defeated Bishop, 133, 946 to 119, 997. Various factors, including the prevailing discontent and a desire for a change of party at any cost, affected the result.
Bishop died in his seventy-sixth year, after a brief illness from pneumonia.
Robert Bishop is best remembered as an associate justice of the Massachusetts Superior Court, a position which was most congenial to him. On the bench he was distinguished by his unfailing courtesy, his careful consideration of cases, his patience and open-mindedness, his dignity, and his complete impartiality.
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Robert Bishop was a member of the Republican party.
Quotations: "I am not much for speed, but I think I have staying qualities. "
Bishop was a deliberate and thoughtful man, of conservative tendencies.
Quotes from others about the person
"In a judiciary justly renowned for integrity and acquirement he held deserved prominence. " - The Boston Evening Transcript
Bishop married, December 24, 1857, in Holliston, Massachussets, Mary Helen Bullard.
