Sir Joseph Napier, 1st Baronet

Sir Joseph Napier, 1st Baronet (26 December 1804 – 9 December 1882) was an Irish Conservative Party Member of Parliament (MP) in the United Kingdom Parliament. He was also a barrister and judge, who served briefly as Lord Chancellor of Ireland.

Career He was the son of William Napier and Rosetta MacNaghten of Ballyreagh House, County Antrim, and was born in Belfast, Ireland, where his father was a prosperous brewer. The family had emigrated to Ulster from Scotland: they were descended from John Napier, inventor of the logarithm. He attended the Belfast Academical Institution and Trinity College Dublin, before being called to the Irish Bar in 1831. He had contemplated remaining at Trinity and seeking a fellowship, but his marriage in 1831 disqualified him, as Trinity required its fellows to be celibate. He built up a very large practice, and acquired an impressive reputation for learning, especially in the area of pleading. He became a Queen's Counsel (QC) in 1844.

He was MP for Dublin University from 1848 to 1858, after failing to be elected in 1847. He became Attorney General for Ireland from March to December 1852. He was also made a member of the Privy Council of Ireland in 1852. He received a Doctorate in Civil Law in 1853.

Napier was a staunch Tory in politics, and exceptionally diligent in attending to his political duties. He left the House of Commons when he was appointed Lord Chancellor of Ireland in 1858, an office he held until 1859. His appointment caused some surprise since he had made his reputation in the courts of common law, although he also did some chancery work. and appointed to the Privy Council of the United Kingdom in 1868, which entitled him to sit on the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. Despite his obvious wish to return to office, he never became Chancellor again: even in the Tory party, his strong Evangelical views had made him enemies, while the Bar complained that his deafness made it impossible for him to conduct business efficiently. He accepted the position of Lord Justice of Appeal, but the reaction from the Bar was so unfavourable (his deafness rather than his religious beliefs seems to have been the issue here) that he withdrew his name. His publications include educational, mathematical and legal works.

One of his sisters, Rosetta Napier, married James Whiteside, Attorney General for Ireland and later Lord Chief Justice of Ireland. The warm friendship between the two men ended in a bitter quarrel which was never made up. Another sister, Mary Napier, married Echlin Molyneux who later became a Professor of English Law at Queen's University Belfast; she died young in 1831, leaving a son, James Henry.

John Robinson, founder and proprietor of the Dublin Daily Express, was a cousin: this assured Napier of favourable press coverage in a wide-circulation Unionist newspaper.