Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lush, Robert
LUSH, Sir ROBERT (1807–1881), lord justice, eldest son of Robert Lush of Shaftesbury, Dorset, by his wife Lucy, daughter of Joseph Foote of Tollard, Wiltshire, was born at Shaftesbury on 25 Oct. 1807. He was educated at a school in Shaftesbury, and afterwards spent some years in a solicitor's office. In 1836 he entered himself as a student at Gray's Inn. In 1838, before he was called to the bar, he published an edition of ‘The Act for the Abolition of Arrest on Mesne Process, 1 & 2 Vict. c. 110,’ with notes and comments, and a treatise on the Wills Act, and in October 1840 there appeared his work on ‘The Practice of the Superior Courts of Common Law at Westminster in Actions and Proceedings over which they have a common Jurisdiction,’ which became the standard book on common-law practice, and was subsequently re-edited in a second and third edition in 1855 (not as the title-page reads 1856) and in 1865 by James Stephen, professor of jurisprudence at King's College, London, and by Joseph Dixon respectively. Having practised for a short time as a special pleader, he was called to the bar on 18 Nov. 1840, and joined the home circuit. Until 1857, when he became a queen's counsel and a bencher of Gray's Inn, he was a busy junior. In 1842 he edited the common-law portion of ‘Chitty's General Practice of the Law.’ Though small and unassuming in appearance and delicate in constitution, his learning and clearness of statement at once gave him a special command of mercantile practice. He attached himself to the court of common pleas, and for some years shared with Sir William Bovill the lead of the home circuit. He never sat in parliament. He was, as Lord Westbury wrote of him (Nash, Life of Lord Westbury, ii. 69), ‘a very learned and distinguished man,’ who, ‘so far as I know, has no politics at all.’ On 30 Oct. 1865 he succeeded Mr. Justice Crompton in the court of queen's bench, where he gained a high reputation for learning and courtesy (see Ballantine, Experiences, ii. 57). He was one of the three judges before whom the Tichborne claimant was tried at bar. When first the Judicature Acts came into force in November 1875, he was assigned to sit at judge's chambers for many consecutive weeks in order to settle the practice, he and Sir George Jessel [q. v.] having principally framed the rules of practice under the acts. He was a member of the judicature commission and of the commission on the penal code in 1878, after the completion of which, and while still a puisne judge, he was appointed a member of the privy council by Lord Beaconsfield in May 1879. In October 1880 he succeeded Lord-justice Thesiger in the court of appeal, but his health soon failed, and on 27 Dec. 1881 he died at his house, 60 Avenue Road, Regent's Park, London. He married in 1839 Elizabeth Ann, daughter of the Rev. Christopher Woollacot of London, who died in 1881, and by her had several children, two of whom are Judge Herbert W. Lush-Wilson, K.C., and Charles Montague Lush, K.C.
[Times, 28 Dec. 1881; Solicitors' Journal, Law Journal, and Law Times for 31 Dec. 1881; Foss's Judges of England; information supplied by H. Lush-Wilson, esq.]