SULLIVAN, Edward (1822-1885), of 32 Fitzwilliam Place, Dublin

Born in Mallow, county Cork in 1822, Sullivan was the eldest son of a successful Protestant wine merchant who later moved to Dublin.1Upon retiring from the trade, his father purchased portions of the Castle Hyde estate near Fermoy and other property in west co. Cork. Sullivan’s grandfather had been sub-agent to the Jephson family at Mallow: H.W. Twiss, ‘Mallow and Some Mallow Men’, JCHAS, xxxii (1927), 14-6 [15]. Having excelled as a student of science and classics at Trinity College, Dublin (where he was a gold medal winner and auditor of the college historical society, 1845), Sullivan was called to the Irish bar in 1848 and joined the Munster circuit. Proving himself thoroughly proficient in the ‘difficult and abstruse system of pleading which then prevailed’, his practice in the courts of law and equity grew quickly and he moved rapidly through the profession, taking silk in 1858 and becoming a serjeant-at-law and bencher of King’s Inns in 1860.2J. Wills & F. Wills, The Irish Nation: Its History and Its Biography, iv (1871), 208; Debrett’s Illustrated House of Commons, and the Judicial Bench (1867), 221. Though small of stature (being known as the ‘Little Serjeant’) he was said to possess ‘the voice of a Stentor’.3A. Hawkins & J. Powell (eds.) The Journal of John Wodehouse First Earl of Kimberley for 1862-1902 (1997), 199; J.R. O’Flanagan, The Munster Circuit: Tales, Trials and Traditions (1880), 381. Both eloquent and tenacious, Sullivan cemented his reputation as a counsellor when, acting in conjunction with James Whiteside, his opening statement and cross-examination of the defendant determined the outcome of the great Yelverton trial of 1861 (a marital dispute involving viscount Avonmore’s son).4Report of the trial in the case of Thelwall v. Yelverton before the Chief Justice and a special jury, on 21st February, 1861 (1861); New York Times, 25 Mar. 1861; M. Healy, The Old Munster Circuit. A book of memories and traditions (1939), 74; C.L. Faulkiner, rev. N. Wells, ‘Sullivan, Sir Edward’, Oxford DNB, liii. 307-8. Unequalled as a case lawyer and forensic advocate, he thereafter occupied the foremost position in equity and in common law business in Ireland, and also established a reputation in England for his appearances before the House of Lords in cases of appeal from the Irish courts. He gave up a large portion of his circuit practice in 1861 when he was appointed law adviser at Dublin Castle. Consistent and straightforward in his conduct, Sullivan was a popular figure within Irish legal circles, and his elevation in February 1865 to the position of Irish solicitor-general was met with approval by legal ‘men of all parties and creeds’.5Wills, Irish Nation, iv. 208; The Times, 27 Feb. 1865; The Irish Law Times, and Solicitors’ Journal, ii (1868), 702.

Although he was a ‘firm adherent’ of the Liberal party, Sullivan took no part in political life before he was returned for his native borough of Mallow at the 1865 general election (though he had been spoken of for the borough in 1859, and was mooted as a candidate for Kinsale in 1863).6Morning Chronicle, 13 Apr. 1859; HP Commons, 1832-68: ‘Mallow’; ‘Kinsale’. As Irish solicitor-general he took a prominent part in the prosecution of the Fenian leaders for treason felony in November 1865, and faced the embarrassment of explaining to the Commons the circumstances of the escape of James Stephens, the organisation’s Head Centre, from Richmond jail, Dublin, two days before the trial.7B. Hourican, ‘Sullivan, Sir Edward’, Dictionary of Irish Biography, ix. 155-6; The Times, 13 Nov. 1865; 26 Dec. 1865; Hansard, 22 Mar. 1866, vol. 182, cc. 769-72.

Well informed, and combining swiftness of intellect with a ‘frank, manly bearing’, Sullivan ‘proved himself a notable exception to the general rule, that great lawyers are great failures in Parliament’.8The Times, 16 Apr. 1885; Wills, Irish Nation, iv. 209. During 1866 he was responsible for several legal reforms, which included bills to reduce the number of judges in the Irish Landed Estates Court, amend the procedures of the Irish admiralty and common law courts, and alter the law relating to Irish petit juries.9PP 1866 (174) iii. 279; PP 1866 (234) iii. 287; PP 1866 (133) i. 7; PP 1866 (18) ii. 33; PP 1866 (19) ii. 289; PP 1866 (41) iv. 43. He also introduced measures to license the establishment of oyster beds, levy charges for additonal constabulary at Belfast, and to validate amendments to the Irish Church Temporality Acts.10PP 1866 (175) iii. 667; PP 1866 (159) i. 381; PP 1866 (134) i. 643. His ‘intimate acquaintance with Irish social questions’ made him a ready and effective debater on these matters and, in addition to defending the government’s Irish land tenure legislation, he dealt efficiently with questions arising over the equitable administration of justice in the northern counties of Ireland.11O’Flanagan, The Munster Circuit, 382; Hansard, 25 July 1866, vol. 184, cc. 1479-80; 16 Mar. 1866, vol. 182, cc. 455-7; 29 Mar. 1867, vol. 186, cc. 874-6.

Although in opposition, Sullivan voiced support for the government’s 1867 reform of the Irish court of chancery to provide for the position of an Irish vice-chancellor, a measure he and James Lawson had introduced the year before, but which had been lost in ‘ludicrous’ circumstances.12Hansard, 14 Mar. 1867, vol. 185, cc. 1859-60; PP 1866 (19) ii. 289. The bill was defeated after an Irish member who warmly supported the measure wandered into the wrong lobby on the division: Wills, Irish Nation, iv. 201, 209. However, he criticised the ‘narrow and niggardly’ spirit of the Conservatives’ Irish tenants’ improvements bill and lent his support to tenants’ grievances over the payment of county cess.13Hansard, 29 Apr. 1867, vol. 186, cc. 1777-8; 28 Mar. 1868, vol. 191, c. 215. Having been involved with the preparation of the Liberals’ abortive Irish reform bill in May 1866, he was quick to attack the Conservatives’ 1868 bill, which set the occupation franchise for Irish urban voters at more than £4.14PP 1866 (142) v. 103; Hansard, 15 June 1868, vol. 192, c. 1585. Having married into a Catholic family in 1850, Sullivan was particularly sympathetic to ideas of religious equality and, speaking on Gladstone’s motion on the Irish Church in April 1868, declared that the body ‘had been established from the first as a political institution’ and that its disestablishment ‘would be a message of peace to Ireland’.15Hansard, 28 Apr. 1868, vol. 191, cc. 1518-21. In accordance with tradition, Sullivan’s sons were raised as Protestants and his daughter as a Catholic: Hourican, ‘Sullivan, Sir Edward’, 156. By placing Ireland’s Catholic and Protestants ‘on the same footing ecclesiastically and civilly’, he argued ‘you would remove the most jarring source of discord which ever disturbed the country’, and so dispose of a grievance that had hitherto worked to the advantage of Irish republicans.16Hansard, 28 Apr. 1868, vol. 191, c. 1519. Sullivan role as a crown prosecutor made him particularly unpopular with advanced nationalists, who dubbed him ‘the Viper’: D. Thornley, Isaac Butt and Home Rule (1964), 67, 72.

When the Liberals returned to power in December 1868, Sullivan’s power and resourcefulness as a counsellor earned him the position of Irish attorney-general.17F.E. Ball, The Judges in Ireland, 1221-1921 (1926), ii. 303; Irish Law Times, 1868. After retaining his seat at Mallow, he showed qualities of courage and prudence in the Commons where, having secured Gladstone’s full confidence, he ‘proved a perfect deus ex machina’ to the prime minister in the conduct of the disestablishment bill.18Wills, Irish Nation, iv. 209; Sullivan had particularly impressed Gladstone at the cabinet committee on the bill in February 1869: Hawkins & Powell, Earl of Kimberley, 231-2; W.E. Gladstone to E. Sullivan, 7 Jan. 1869: Gladstone Diaries, vii. 4. His grasp of the details of the legislation enabled him to successfully argue its clauses and meet objections during the committee stage of the bill.19The Times, 16 Apr. 1885; Ball, Judges in Ireland, ii. 304, and see Hansard, 19, 22, 23, 26, 29 Apr., 3, 6, 7 May, 15 July 1869. He was also the key architect of the 1870 Irish Land Act, which involved the extension of Ulster tenant-right to the rest of Ireland.20Hawkins & Powell, Earl of Kimberley, 242; E.D. Steele, Irish Land and British Politics (1974), 183. For his role in preparing the bill, see ibid., 185-6, 189-91, 241. His immersion in the debates over the measure only temporarily retarded his legal career, and he vacated his seat on being appointed master of the rolls in Ireland in January 1870.21Gladstone had postponed Sullivan’s elevation to the bench, being ‘loathe to face’ carrying the bill ‘without a lawyer who knows his subject, & commands the House’: W.E. Gladstone to Earl Spencer, 29 Oct. 1869, Gladstone Diaries, vii. 159. Thereafter he presided over the administration of justice with ‘singular ability, impartiality, firmness, and courtesy’, his judgments being arrived at rapidly, and declared ‘with a promptitude and decision’ which demonstrated a mastery of the technical complexities of the law.22The Times, 14 Apr. 1885.

When Gladstone returned to office in 1880, Sullivan had become the most notable figure in the Irish judiciary and, incidentally, an advocate of ‘fair trade’ protectionism.23See E. Sullivan, ‘Isolated free trade’, Nineteenth Century, x (1881), 161-80. He was created a baronet on Gladstone’s recommendation in December 1881, having been greatly valued for his strength and decisiveness during the disorder that followed the suppression of the Irish Land League.24Though in May 1881 the Irish chief secretary, W.E. Forster, had failed to persuade Gladstone to promote Sullivan to the Irish lord chancellorship: T.W. Moody & R.A.J. Hawkins (eds.), Florence Arnold-Forster’s Irish Journal (1988), 159. Following the sudden death of the Irish lord chancellor, Hugh Law, in September 1883, he was made joint commissioner of the great seal and became lord chancellor of Ireland that December.25Earl Spencer to W.E. Gladstone, 10 Sept. 1883: BL, Althorp papers, Add MS. 76858. Spencer had wanted to promote Sullivan to the court of appeal, but the appointment would have required an act of parliament: Ibid., 20 May 1883. Despite having enjoyed excellent health, Sullivan’s long-standing reputation for ‘persevering industry … and untiring application to business’ may have hastened his sudden and unexpected death from an attack of angina pectoris in April 1885.26The Times, 27 Feb. 1865; The Times, 14 Apr. 1885; Twiss, ‘Mallow Men’, 16. At that time, it was said that his power within Irish government was ‘immense’, and the Irish viceroy, earl Spencer, considered him to be ‘irreplaceable’. He was buried in Dean’s Grange cemetery, near Dublin, his funeral being described as ‘one of the largest ever witnessed in the city’.27Ball, Judges in Ireland, ii. 312; Spencer to Gladstone, 18 Apr. 1885: BL, Althorp papers, Add MS. 76862; The Times, 18 Apr. 1885; Wells, ‘Sullivan, Sir Edward’, 308; Flanagan, The Munster Circuit, 382, and see Irish Law Times (18 Apr. 1885), 199, 206; (25 Apr. 1885), 463, 468. Colleagues paid tribute to ‘his sense of justice’, ‘great sagacity, ripe experience’ and devotion to the interests of the country, his career being hailed as ‘a triumph of courageous and persevering talent, impelled by an honourable ambition and guided by a sense of honour’.28The Times, 14, 16 Apr. 1885.

Sullivan was an outstanding classical scholar and skilled linguist and was remarkable as a book collector. He owned one of the most valuable private libraries in Ireland, which he bequeathed to his eldest son and successor, Sir Edward Sullivan (1852-1928).29Wells, ‘Sullivan, Sir Edward’, 308. His total assets at death amounted to about £90,000: The Times, 23 May 1885. A barrister and scholarly writer, his son stood unsuccessfully as a Liberal Unionist at the general elections of 1886 (for the St. Stephen’s Green division of Dublin) and 1892 (for the Chester-le-Street division of Durham).30Hourican, ‘Sullivan, Sir Edward’, 156. Another son, Robert, was drowned along with his fiancé in a boating accident at Killiney in 1877: The Times, 23 May 1885.