William Huston DODD

Background

DODD, William Huston was born on March 28, 1844 in Rathfriland. Son of Robert Dodd, Rathfriland.

Education

Royal Academical Institution, Belfast. Queen's College, Belfast. Bachelor of Arts 1st Honours.

Master of Arts 1st Honours, Queen's University in Ireland.

Career

He held the Crown office of Third Serjeant, sat in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom as member for North Tyrone, and served as a judge of the High Court of Justice in Ireland 1907-1924. There is a sympathetic sketch of him in The Old Munster Circuit by Maurice Healy. He entered the Middle Temple in 1871 and was called to the Irish Bar in 1873, becoming Queen"s Counsel in 1884.

He stood for Parliament, unsuccessfully, in North Antrim in 1892 and South Londonderry in 1895.

In 1906 he reached the House of Commons at last, and was made a High Court judge the following year. During the transitional arrangements following the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921, Dodd, like most of his colleagues, remained on the Bench.

However Hugh Kennedy, the new Chief Justice of Ireland, had an extremely low opinion of almost all of the judges of the old regime and was determined to remove them en bloc. He died in 1930.

Maurice Healy in his memoirs describes Dodd as a man of rough appearance and manner (his nickname was "the mechanic"), which concealed a great deal of kindness.

He was rather tactless, but had the gift of being able to take a joke against himself.

His main fault was vanity, and while Healy thought him a good judge, his very high estimate of his own talents was apparently not shared by his colleagues. Healy admired him for never compromising his political principles, though this delayed his elevation to the Bench by at least a decade. Fortunately, according to Healy, one of Dodd"s virtues was magnanimity, and he was incapable of bearing grudges.

Achievements

• In Dodd"s case this was achieved tactfully, since the Courts of Justice Acting 1924 imposed an age limit of 72, and Dodd, who was 80, was deemed to have automatically retired.

Politics

Liberal.

Membership

28th United Kingdom Parliament]

Dodd was throughout his life a loyal member of the Liberal Party: this hampered his career, as the Liberals were in opposition during the years when he might have expected to be appointed to the Bench, although he did become Third Serjeant, which was a Crown office, in 1892.

Interests

• Golf.

Connections

colleague:

Peter O'Brien

colleagues:

Maurice Healy