William Shee

Sir William Shee (24 June 1804 – 1868) was an Anglo-Irish politician, lawyer and judge, the first Roman Catholic judge to sit in England and Wales since the Reformation.

Early life and legal career Shee was born in Finchley, Middlesex. His father, Joseph, was a merchant from Thomastown, County Kilkenny, Ireland, his mother, Teresa née Darell. Nicholas Wiseman was a cousin. He was initially educated at the school for French refugees founded by the Abbé Carron in Somers Town and where Hughes Felicité Robert de Lamennais taught. In 1818 he joined Wiseman as a student at St. Cuthbert's College, Ushaw. He also attended Edinburgh University where he joined The Speculative Society. In 1823 he became a pupil of Thomas Chitty at Lincoln's Inn and was called to the bar in 1828.

Shee enjoyed a successful career as a barrister, being made serjeant-at-law in 1840, receiving a patent of precedence in 1845, and being appointed queen's serjeant in 1857. In 1837, he married Mary Gordon (died 1861) and their children included George Darell Shee and Henry Gordon Shee QC who became Recorder of Burnley and a judge in Salford. He edited a great number of legal publications. Shee became active in Irish tenants' rights. William Sharman Crawford having failed to be re-elected in 1852, Shee took charge of, and reintroduced, his Tenant Right Bill on 25 November 1852. In December, he spoke in support of Sir Joseph Napier's Improvement Compensation Bill but both bills were rejected by a select committee. Shee submitted an amended bill in February 1854 but it fared poorly. On 19 December 1863, Shee was appointed judge of the Queen's Bench, and knighted the following year. He was the first Roman Catholic judge in England since the Glorious Revolution of 1688. Shee died from apoplexy at his home in London.