1922 Encyclopædia Britannica/Kinnear, Alexander Smith Kinnear, 1st Baron

KINNEAR, ALEXANDER SMITH KINNEAR, 1st Baron (1833-1917), Scottish judge, was born at Edinburgh Nov. 3 1833. He was educated at Glasgow and Edinburgh universities, and was called to the Scottish bar in 1856. For some years he acted as a law reporter, but in 1878 he was chosen leading counsel in the Court of Session for the liquidators in the case arising out of the failure of the City of Glasgow Bank, and henceforward his rise was rapid. In 1881 he became a Q.C., and the same year was chosen dean of the Faculty of Advocates. In 1882 he was made a judge, with the courtesy title of Lord Kinnear, and in 1890 an appellate judge, retiring from the Court of Session in 1913, although he continued to sit in the House of Lords as a lord of appeal. Kinnear was raised to the peerage in 1897 in recognition of his services as chairman of the Scottish Universities Commission of 1889. He was also a member of the commission of 1904 for settling the question of the division of Scottish church property. He died at Edinburgh Dec. 20 1917.