Elliott Northcott

Elliott Northcott (April 26, 1869 – January 3, 1946) was a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.

Early and family life

Born in Clarksburg, West Virginia, Northcott attended the University of Michigan Law School, but read law to enter the bar in 1891. Northcott married Lola Beardsley in 1893.

Lawyer and diplomat

Northcott was admitted to the West Virginia bar and began a private legal practice in 1891. He became the city attorney of Huntington, West Virginia, serving from 1897 to 1898, and then became an Assistant United States Attorney of the Southern District of West Virginia from 1898 to 1905, and won promotion to become the United States Attorney for that district from 1905 to 1909.

Northcott then became a diplomat in the U.S. State department. The United States Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to Colombia from 1909 to 1911, he held a similar position in Nicaragua in 1911, and then transferred to a similar position with respect to Venezuela (1911 to 1913). in which the Fourth Circuit upheld a 1929 decision of Judge Groner of the Eastern District of Virginia, West v. Bliley, that ruled Virginia's white primary unconstitutional. This predated by fourteen years the Supreme Court ruling against white primaries in general in Smith v. Allwright.

Death and legacy

Judge Northcott died on January 3, 1946, in Arcadia, Florida.