Christopher Palles

"Christopher Palles (1831-1920), Irish lawyer, last chief baron of the Irish Court of Exchequer, was born Dec. 25 1831. He was educated at Clongowes Wood school, and Trinity College, Dublin, where he graduated in 1852. He was called to the Irish bar in 18J3, and became a Q.C. in 1865. In 1872 he became a solicitor-general for Ireland, and from 1872 was attorney-general. In 1874 he was made chief baron of the Court of Exchequer. The Exchequer division was in 1898 merged in the Queen's Bench division of the Irish High Court of Justice, and the chief baron from that time sat as one of the judges of the Queen's Bench division, and also as a judge of appeal. Palles retired from the bench at an advanced age in 1916. He was a great lawyer, of remarkably wide learning and power of argument. He died in Dublin Feb. 14 1920.