Dictionary of National Biography, 1912 supplement/Byrne, Edmund Widdrington
BYRNE, Sir EDMUND WIDDRINGTON (1844–1904), judge, born at Islington on 30 June 1844, was eldest son of Edmund Byrne of Whitehall Place, Westminster, solicitor, by his wife Mary Elizabeth Co well. Educated at King's College, London, he entered as student at Lincoln's Inn on 5 Nov. 1863, was a pupil in the chambers of (Sir) George Osborne Morgan [q. v. Suppl. I], and was called to the bar on 26 Jan. 1867. Starting his career with a family connection among solicitors, he soon made for himself a large business as a conveyancer and equity draftsman, while his powers of clear and concise statement in court gave him a position among the leading juniors of the chancery bar; a place in his pupil room in Lincoln's Inn was much sought after. He took silk in 1888 and became a bencher of his inn in 1892. Attaching himself to the court of Mr. Justice Chitty [q. v. Suppl. I], he quickly obtained the lion's share of the work there in conjunction with Robert Romer, Q.C., destined to be his colleague on the bench. A well-grounded lawyer and pleasant speaker, he was an admirable leader in routine chancery cases, and the care with which he got up his briefs and the pertinacity with which he plied his arguments made him an especial favourite among clients professional and lay. He was essentially the advocate for a court of first instance, and his appearances in the higher tribunals were rare, except when following to the court of appeal cases in which he had appeared at the former hearing. In July 1892 he successfully contested the Walthamstow division of Essex as a conservative. The Finance Act of 1894 and the abortive employers' liability bill of the following year provided ample opportunity for a fluent and careful lawyer's intervention in debate. Byrne surprised his friends by the facility with which he acquired the parliamentary manner, and he was bracketed by the ministerial press with Mr. J. G. Butcher, K.C., and Mr. T. Gibson Bowles as 'the busy bees.' In July 1895 he was again returned for Walthamstow by a largely increased majority, and on 18 Jan. 1897, on the promotion of Chitty to a lord-justiceship, the vacant judgeship in the chancery division was given to Byrne. He was knighted in due course. On the bench he was accurate, painstaking, courteous, and patient to all comers, and his judgments, which included an unusual number of patent cases, were, with hardly an exception, affirmed upon appeal. On the other hand he was morbidly conscientious, apt to be too dependent on authority, and extremely slow; arrears accumulated in his court and in his chambers. He died after a very short illness on 4 April 1904, at his house, 33 Lancaster Gate, Hyde Park. He was buried at Brookwood cemetery.
Byrne married on 13 Aug. 1874 Henrietta Johnstone, daughter of James Gulland of Newton, of Wemyss, Fifeshire, by whom he left a family. A portrait by Edmund Brock is in the possession of Lady Byrne.
[The Times, 6 April 1905; personal knowledge and private information.]