Dictionary of National Biography, 1912 supplement/Hemphill, Charles Hare
HEMPHILL, CHARLES HARE, first Baron Hemphill (1822–1908), lawyer and politician, born in August 1822 at his father's residence in Cashel, was youngest of the five children — two sons and three daughters — of John Hemphill (1777–1833) of Cashel and Rathkenny, co. Tipperary, whose grandfather was Samuel Hemphill [q. v.], the Presbyterian divine and controversialist, and whose mother, Elisabeth Bacon of Rathkenny, was a niece of Matthew Bacon, author of 'Bacon's New Abridgment of the Law,' and a descendant of Sir Nicholas Bacon [q. v.]. Charles's mother, Barbara Hemphill [q. v.], was youngest daughter of Patrick Hare, D.D. His elder brother served as lieutenant in the 69th regiment, and died unmarried in Oct. 1840. Hemphill after his father's death in 1833 was placed at Dr. Walls's school, Dublin. In 1839 he matriculated at Trinity College, Dublin, of which his maternal uncle and godfather, Charles Hare, D.D., was a distinguished fellow and tutor. Hemphill's academic career was brilliant: he obtained a classical scholarship in 1842 and first classical moderatorship and the large gold medal for classics in 1843, when he graduated B.A. He was moreover auditor of the Trinity College Historical Society, in whose debates he took a prominent part. Amongst his friends and contemporaries in the society were William Magee, archbishop of York [q. v.], and Sir Edward Sullivan, Lord chancellor of Ireland [q. v.]. After serving his terms at the Middle Temple, London, and the King's Inns, Dublin, he was called to the Irish bar in midsummer term 1845, along with (Sir) Charles Gavan Duffy [q. v. Suppl. II] and Lord Justice Barry. Hemphill went the Leinster circuit, and rapidly acquired a large practice.
Hemphill's ambition from the first was for a political rather than a forensic career. In 1857 and again in 1859, while a stuff gownsman, he unsuccessfully contested Cashel, his birthplace, in the liberal interest and was defeated, polling on the first occasion thirty-nine votes against fifty-four for Sir Timothy O'Brien. His high standard of electoral morality explains his defeat. He took silk in 1860, and next year declined an offer of a judgeship in the high court of Bengal. In 1863 he was appointed chairman of a county, the title at the time of a county court judge in Ireland. The office did not preclude him from practising at the bar, but rendered him ineligible for election to the House of Commons. He was successively chairman of the counties of Louth, Leitrim, and Kerry. The administration of the Irish Land Act of 1870 was entrusted to county court judges, and Hemphill strenuously endeavoured to carry out the intention of the legislature by securing for tenants capriciously evicted from their holdings compensation for improvements made by themselves. On the coming into operation of the County Courts (Ireland) Act of 1877, whereby county court judges were no longer permitted to practise at the bar, he elected to vacate his county court judgeship on a pension and to pursue his profession. In January 1882 he was appointed a bencher of the King's Inns, and in the same year was made one of three serjeants-at-law, in Ireland, who take precedence at the bar immediately after the law officers of the crown.
In 1886, on the split in the liberal party on the Home Rule question, Hemphill threw in his lot with the Gladstonian liberals. At the general election of that year, after nearly a generation, he was once more a parliamentary candidate, contesting unsuccessfully the West Derby division of Liverpool in the Gladstonian interest, and at the general election of 1892 he was defeated in a contest for the representation of Hastings. On the fall of Lord Salisbury's administration in August 1892 Hemphill, although he had completed his seventieth year, became Irish solicitor-general in Gladstone's fourth administration. He held the post till the fall of Lord Rosebery's administration in 1895, when he was sworn of the Irish privy council, an honour not previously accorded to an outgoing solicitor-general. At the general elections of 1895 and 1900 Hemphill was returned in the liberal interest by majorities of ninety-nine and forty-four respectively as member for North Tyrone, and was the only member of the Gladstonian party in the House of Commons representing an Irish constituency. Although he entered the House of Commons at an advanced age, his intellectual alertness, legal knowledge, powerful memory, and physical vigour made him a power in debate; while his geniality and old-world courtesy rendered him personally popular. On the formation of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman's administration in December 1905 Hemphill's years precluded his appointment to the Irish lord chancellorship. A peerage which he did not seek was conferred on him. He was created Baron Hemphill of Rathkenny and of Cashel on 12 Jan. 1906. He died on 4 March 1908 at his residence, 65 Merrion Square, Dublin, and was buried at Deansgrange cemetery, near Dublin.
Of distinguished presence, above the medium height, and of erect carriage even in old age, Hemphill was entertaining in conversation owing to his wide reading and varied experience.
A portrait by Morant is in the possession of his son, the second Lord Hemphill. Hemphill married on 11 April 1849 Augusta Mary, younger daughter of the Hon. Sir Francis Stanhope, K.H., and grand-daughter of Charles Stanhope, third earl of Harrington. She died on 12 April 1899. Two sons and a daughter of the marriage survive; the elder son. Stanhope Charles John, succeeded his father as second Baron Hemphill.
[Freeman's Journal, 5, 6, 7 March 1908; Law Times, 7, 14, 21 March 1908; information derived from the first Lord Hemphill and his family.]