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He was born at Cultra, Co. Down, Ireland. His father, William Cairns, formerly a captain in the 47th regiment, came of a family of Scottish origin, which had come to Ireland in the time of James I of England. Hugh Cairns was the second son, and was educated at Belfast Academy and at Trinity College, Dublin, graduating with a senior moderatorship in classics in 1838. In 1844 he was called to the bar at the Middle Temple, to which he had moved from Lincoln's Inn. During his first years at the chancery bar, Cairns showed little eloquence. He was so slow and diffident that he feared for his legal career. Yet in 1852Events January 14 President Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte proclaims a new constitution for the French Second Republic. January 17 United Kingdom recognizes independence of the Transvaal Devil's Island penal colony opens February 11 First British public toilet he entered parliament as member for BelfastThis article is about the city of Belfast in Northern Ireland. See also: Belfast (disambiguation). Belfast is the largest city in Northern Ireland and the Irish Province of Ulster, with a population of 277,391. It is the seat of government for Northern Ir, and he became a Q.C.Queen's Counsel ( postnominal QC , during the reign of a male Sovereign known as King's Counsel KC , are barristers appointed by patent to be one of "Her Majesty's Counsel learned in the law". They do not constitute a separate order or degree of lawyers. in 1856Events January 8 Borax is discovered ( John Veatch). January 29 Queen Victoria institutes the Victoria Cross February 18 The American Party ( Know-Nothings) convene in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to nominate their first Presidential candidate, former Presi. In the same year, he married Mary Harriet, eldest daughter of John McNeill, of Parkmount, County AntrimCounty Antrim Aontroim in Irish) is one of the six counties of Northern Ireland. Covering an area of 2,844 km˛, it has a population of approximately 566,000. The county town is Antrim. Other notable towns and cities in Antrim include: Belfast (partially i, by whom he had five sons and two daughters.
In 1858Events January 14 Felice Orsini and his accomplices fail to assassinate Napoleon III in Paris but their bombs kill 156 bystanders. Because of the involvement of French emigres living in Britain, there is a brief anti-British feeling in France but the empe Cairns was appointed Solicitor-General , and was knightThe dignity of Knight Bachelor is a part of the British honours system. It refers to someone who has been knighted by the monarch but not as a member of one of the organized Orders of Chivalry. Knights Bachelor are the most ancient sort of British knight,ed, and in May of that year made two of his most brilliant and best-remembered speeches in the House of CommonsThe House of Commons is a component of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which also includes the Sovereign and the House of Lords. The House of Commons is a democratically elected body, consisting of 659 members, who are known as "Members of Parliamen. In the first, he defended the action of Lord Ellenborough , who, as President of the Board of Control, had not only censured Lord Canning for a proclamation issued by him as Governor-General of India but had made public the despatch in which the censure was convoyed. On the other occasion referred to, Cairns spoke in opposition to Lord John Russell's amendment to the motion for the second reading of the government Reform Bill, winning the approval of Benjamin Disraeli. Disraeli's appreciation found an opportunity for displaying itself some years later, when in 1868 he invited him to be Lord Chancellor in the brief Conservative administration which followed Lord Derby's resignation of the party leadership. Meanwhile, Cairns had maintained his reputation in debate, both when his party was in power and when it was in opposition.
In 1866 Lord Derby, returning to office, had made him Attorney General, and in the same year he had availed himself of a vacancy to seek the comparative rest of the Court of Appeal. While a Lord Justice he had been offered a peerage, and though at first unable to accept it, he had finally done so when a relative provided the means necessary for the endowment of a title.
The appointment of Baron Cairns as Lord Chancellor in 1868 meant superseding Lord Chelmsford, an act apparently carried out by Disraeli with little tact. Chelmsford declared that he had been sent away with less courtesy than if he had been a butler, but the testimony of Lord Malmesbury is that the affair was the result of an understanding arrived at when Lord Chelmsford took office. Disraeli held office on this occasion for a few months only, and when Lord Derby died in 1869, Cairns became the leader of the Conservative opposition in the House of Lords.
He had distinguished himself in the Commons by his resistance to the Roman Catholics Oath Bill brought in in 1865; in the Lords, his efforts on behalf of the Irish Church were equally strenuous. His speech on Gladstone's Suspensory Bill was afterwards published as a pamphlet, but the attitude which he and the peers who followed him had taken up, in insisting on their amendments to the preamble of the bill, was one difficult to maintain, and Lord Cairns made terms with Lord Granville in circumstances which precluded his consulting his party first. He issued a circular to explain his action. The incident appears to have demonstrated his statesmanship, for he secured concessions which would have been irretrievably lost by continued opposition. Not long after this, Lord Cairns resigned the leadership of his party in the upper house, but resumed it in 1870 and opposed the Irish Land Bill in that year. On the Conservatives coming into power in 1874, he again became Lord Chancellor; in 1878 he was created Viscount Garmoyle and Earl Cairns; and in 1880 his party went out of office.
In opposition he did not take as prominent a part as previously, but when Lord Beaconsfield died in 1881, there were some Conservatives who considered that his title to lead the party was better than that of Lord Salisbury. His health, never robust, had for many years shown intermittent signs of failing. He had periodically made enforced retirements to the Riviera, and for many years had had a house at Bournemouth, and it was there that he died.