HERSCHELL, FARRER HERSCHELL, 1ST BARON (1837-1899), lord chancellor of England, was born on the 2nd of November 1837. His father was the Rev. Ridley Haim Herschell, a native of Strzelno, in Prussian Poland, who, when a young man, exchanged the Jewish faith for Christianity, took a leading part in founding the British Society for the Propagation of the Gospel among the Jews, and, after many journeyings, settled down to the charge of a Nonconformist chapel near the Edgware Road, in London, where he ministered to a large congregation. His mother was a daughter of William Mowbray, a merchant of Leith. He was educated at a private school and at University College, London. In 1857 he took his B.A. degree at the University of London. He was reckoned the best speaker in the school debating society, and he displayed there the same command of language and lucidity of thought which were his characteristics during his official life. The reputation which Herschell enjoyed during his school days was maintained after he became a law-student at Lincoln's Inn. In 1858 he entered the chambers of Thomas Chitty, the famous common law pleader, father of the late Lord Justice Chitty. His fellow pupils, amongst whom were A. L. Smith, afterwards master of the rolls, and Arthur Charles, afterwards judge of the queen's bench division, gave him the sobriquet of "the chief baron" in recognition of his superiority. He subsequently read with James Hannen, afterwards Lord Hannen. In 1860 he was called to the bar and joined the northern circuit, then in its palmy days of undividedness. For four or five years he did not obtain much work. Fortunately, he was never a poor man, and so was not forced into journalism, or other paths of literature, in order to earn a living. Two of his contemporaries, each of whom achieved great eminence, found themselves in like case. One of these, Charles Russell, became lord chief justice of England; the other, William Court Gully, speaker of the House of Commons. It is said that these three friends, dining together during a Liverpool assize some years after they had been called, agreed that their prospects were anything but cheerful. Certain it is that about this time Herschell meditated quitting England for Shanghai and practising in the consular courts there. Herschell, however, soon made himself useful to Edward James, the then leader of the northern circuit, and to John Richard Quain, the leading stuff-gownsman. For the latter he was content to note briefs and draft opinions, and when, in 1866, Quain donned "silk," it was on Herschell that a large portion of his mantle descended.