Vernon Lushington

From wikipedia - Vernon Lushington

Vernon Lushington KC, (8 March 1832 – 24 January 1912), was a Positivist, Deputy Judge Advocate General, Second Secretary to the Admiralty, and was associated with the Pre-Raphaelites. He was a Cambridge Apostle.

Lushington was born in Westminster, London, to Stephen and Sarah Grace (née Carr) Lushington; his twin brother was Godfrey Lushington, KCB GCMG, Permanent Under-Secretary of State of the Home Office. He was educated at East India College, Haileybury, Hertfordshire Haileybury and Imperial Service College 51.7787, -0.0333, and Trinity College, Trinity Street, Cambridge CB2 1TQ 52.2070, 0.1146. He became a QC, a county court judge, Secretary to the Admiralty in 1871, and Deputy Judge Advocate General from 1878 to 1912. He married Jane Mowatt, daughter of Francis Mowatt, on 28 February 1865. From 1877 to 1903 the Lushington family's country residence was [Pyports, Downside Bridge Road, Cobham, Surrey KT11 3EH 51.325814, -0.4123625].

With his brother Godfrey, he advocated positivist philosophy, motivated by the ideas of Auguste Comte, and was a follower of Frederic Harrison. Influenced by Frederick Denison Maurice, he joined the Working Men's College as a singing teacher, and promoter of art and music appreciation; he became part of the group that formed the first College governing Corporation in 1854. At the death of Maurice in 1872, he, with his brother, and Frederick James Furnivall, Thomas Hughes, and Richard Buckley Litchfield, became a unifying force at the College.

He was a friend to artists, authors and activists, particularly those of The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and the Arts and Crafts Movement who gravitated to the Working Men's College. In 1856, it was he who first introduced Edward Burne-Jones to Dante Gabriel Rossetti in his college rooms. Rossetti used Lushington’s wife, Jane, as a model in 1865.

Lushington, friend of William Morris, was a frequent visitor to Kelmscott Manor 51.6880, -1.6382. He was a close friend of Leslie Stephen and his family; Stephen’s daughter Virginia (later Woolf) based her character Mrs. Dalloway on Lushington’s daughter Kitty. He was also a close friend of Working Men’s College founder Richard Buckley Litchfield and his wife Etty, daughter of Charles Darwin; the Lushingtons were regular visitors to Darwin’s Down House 51.33139, 0.05333. As Thomas Carlyle’s friend, he edited Carlyle’s first Collected Works, (Chapman and Hall, 1858).

From British Newspaper Archive: Reading Mercury Monday, 12 March 1832 Page 3 Births

Births. — On Thursday, 8 March 1832 [inst.] in Great George Street, Westminster, the lady of Dr. Lushington, M.P. of two sons.

From Memorials Of Old Haileybury College by Haileybury East India College, Published 1894 Page 450

• Haileybury, 1850-51.
• Classics, Prize (2nd term); Law, Prize (1st, 2nd, 3rd terms); History and Political Economy, Prize (2nd term); Sanskrit, Prize (1st, 2nd, 3rd terms); Hindi, Prize (2nd term); General Proficiency, at Easter, Prize (2nd term).

From University of Cambridge: Vernon Lushington

• Vernon Lushington 1832–1912
• "Pensioner" Fee paying student, aged 19, at Trinity College, Cambridge, Admitted Saturday, 17 January 1852
• 4th Son of The Rt. Hon. Stephen Lushington (Christ Church, Oxford, 1797), Judge of Admiralty Court and Master of the Bench of Inner Temple and Grace Carr daughter of Thomas [ERROR Wilson CORRECTION William] Carr, of Hampstead, London.
• Born Thursday, 8 March 1832 in London
• Matriculated January 1852
• Scholar 1854
• Civil Law Classes, 1st Class (1854-1855);
• LL.B 1859
• LL.M 1885
• President of Cambridge Union Society 52.20861, 0.11944 1854
• Admitted to the Inner Temple: Monday, 15 March 1852
• Called to the Bar: Monday, 26 January 1857
• Deputy Judge Advocate-General: 1864-1869
• Queen's Counsel: 1868
• Bencher: 1869
• Secretary to the Admiralty 1869-77
• Judge of County Courts (Surrey and Berkshire) 1877-1900
• Married Tuesday, 28 February 1865, Jane Mowatt, daughter of Francis Mowatt M.P.: and had issue.
• Published: "Reports of Cases decided in Admiralty Court and on appeal to Privy Council. Of Kingsley, Bordon, Hampshire,"
• Died Wednesday, 24 January 1912
• (Scott, MSS.; Law Lists; Foster, Men at the Bar; Inns of Court; Burke, P. and B.; Who was Who.)

From freecen - Vernon Lushington 1861 Lancashire Huyton 1832

7 April 1861 Census for residents of Red Hazles, Huyton, Lancashire

• Thomas B Birch, head, unmarried, male, age 70 [born about 1791] in Liverpool, Lancashire, England; Magistrate Dept Lieut
• Vernon Lushington, visitor, unmarried, male, age 29 [born about 1832] in London, England; Barister In Practice

From FreeBMD: Registration of marriage of Jane Mowatt in 1865 and FreeBMD: Registration of marriage of Vernon Lushington in 1865

• January to March 1865: Registration of marriage of Vernon Lushington; in Westminster (Volume 1a, Page 480)
• January to March 1865: Registration of marriage of Jane Mowatt; in Westminster (Volume 1a, Page 480)

From British Newspaper Archive: Cambridge Independent Press Saturday, 4 March 1865 Page 8 Marriages

Marriages: Lushington — Mowatt — Tuesday, 28 February 1865, at Holy Trinity Church, Westminster (by the Very Rev. the Dean of Westminster), Vernon Lushington, barrister-st law, son of the Right Hon. Stephen Lushington, to Jane Mowatt, third daughter of Francis Mowatt, Esq., of 84 Eccleston Square.

From Surrey Archives

26 July 1882 Letter: Vernon Lushington, Milan [Italy], to Jane Lushington, Pyports [Cobham, Surrey]

He is in Milan with his friend Middleton. He has bought a Panama hat which rolls up when not wanted. 'I forgot if I told you Middleton was a Positivist - one of Congreve's little flock.'

[Note: Middleton was John Henry Middleton (1846-1896), archaeologist and Director of the Fitzwilliam Museum 52.200278, 0.119444, Cambridge (from 1889), and the Victoria and Albert Museum 51.49639, -0.17194 (from 1892)]

From Surrey Archives

3147 Articles! including will, letters, lectures, notes, positivism

From PDF Vernon Lushington - Practising Positivism PhD by David Taylor 2010

From MyHeritage: Probate index 1912

5 March 1912 probate of Vernon Lushington of [36 Kensington Square, London W8 5HP 51.5008438, -0.1908343], who died 24 January 1912, probate granted in London to Susan Lushington, spinster. Effects £19799 15s. 1d. Resworn £19798 16s. 1d.

From British Newspaper Archive: Sun (Antigua) Wednesday, 8 May 1912 Page 3 A Judge's Blunder Over His Will

Documents Improperly Attested for £19,000 Estate.

Another instance has occurred of a judge who failed to draw up his will correctly. Mr. Vernon Lushington, K.C., of 36 Kensington Square, W., who was at one time Judge Advocate-General, afterwards Secretary to the Admiralty, and later (from 1877 to 1900) a Judge of county courts for Surrey and Berkshire, who died on Wednesday, 24 January 1912, left estate valued at £19,569 gross.

His will and codicil were drawn by himself on separate sheets of note paper, and were not properly attested, and in each case an affidavit by the attesting witnesses of due execution was required before the documents were admitted to probate. Probate of these documents has now been granted to his daughter, Miss Susan Lushington.

Image from National Portrait Gallery - Vernon Lushington (1832-1912), Secretary of the Admiralty

Buried at [Cobham Cemetery, 45 Tilt Road, Cobham, Surrey KT11 3EZ 51.3205534, -0.396484]