Sir John Ross, 1st Baronet

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http://www.dunmoylecottage.com/sir-john-ross.html: Sir John Ross (1853-1935) - Last Lord Chancellor Of Ireland

Sir John Ross, 1st Baronet, PC, QC (1853–1935) was born in Derry/Londonderry, in what was then the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, on 11th December 1853. He was the eldest son of the Reverend Robert Ross DD, Presbyterian Minister and, at one time, Moderator of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland. He was educated at the model school and at Foyle College, Derry/Londonderry, where the songwriter Percy French was one of his schoolfriends. In 1873 he entered Trinity College, Dublin. He became president of the university Philosophical Society in 1877 and graduated BA in the same year; in 1878 he was auditor of the Trinity College Historical Society, where his contemporaries included the politician and judge Edward Carson (later Lord Carson) and James Campbell (the future Lord Glenavy, Lord Chancellor of Ireland). He graduated with a Bachelor of Laws (LL.B.) degree in 1879.

Ross had entered Gray's Inn, London, in 1878 and was called to the Irish bar in 1879. He became a Queen's Counsel in 1889. He was Conservative member of parliament for Derry/Londonderry City from 1892 until his defeat in 1895. In 1896 Ross was elevated to the bench as land judge in the Chancery Division of the High Court of Justice in Ireland. When appointed, he was the youngest judge in the United Kingdom and he was the first Presbyterian judge of the High Court.

Ross was sworn of the Irish privy council in 1902. In 1919 he was created a baronet. In 1921, in succession to Sir James Campbell, Ross was appointed Lord Chancellor of Ireland. He was to be the last holder of that office, which was abolished in December 1922. Ross retired to London, but later he returned to live in Northern Ireland.

The Ross Baronetcy, of Dunmoyle, was created in the Baronetage of the United Kingdom on 15 February 1919 for the Irish lawyer John Ross. He later served as the last Lord Chancellor of Ireland. The second Baronet represented Londonderry in the House of Commons as an Ulster Unionist. On his death in 1958 the title became extinct.

He was president of the St John Ambulance Brigade in Ireland and during the First World War was in control of all Red Cross activities in southern Ireland. In 1914 he was made a Knight of Grace of the Grand Priory of the order of St John of Jerusalem. During the war he was also chairman of the Irish board for the selection of candidates for commissions in the British army.

In 1882 Ross had married Katherine Mary Jeffcock (d. 1932), only daughter of Lieutenant-Colonel Deane Mann, of Dunmoyle and Corvey Lodge, co. Tyrone. They had one son, Major Ronald Deane Ross MC MP, and two daughters, the younger of whom predeceased her father. Ross died, of bronchial pneumonia, at his home, Dunmoyle Lodge, Sixmilecross, co. Tyrone, on 17 August 1935, and was succeeded as second baronet by his son.

As a student he co-wrote a few songs with Percy French and became a well-known public speaker. His background was Unionist but as a barrister and later a judge of Land Estates Court he gained the respect of all political opinion. In the land League days the Parish Priest of Gweedore fell foul of the law and was jailed for three months by Judge John Ross. An appeal to a higher court saw the sentence increased to six months. On release his bishop moved him to a very poor parish. Later Judge Ross got a letter of thanks from this priest for his efforts in making it possible for the poor people of his new parish to become owners of their land. In the 1916 Rising a commander of the Four Courts ordered that the room and personal effects of Judge Ross were not touched. John Ross later met and thanked him. As a humble man who had made good, John Ross was adopted as First Citizen of Dunmoyle by local People.