Edward Henry Carson, Baron Carson (9 February 1854 – 22 October 1935), from 1900 to 1921 known as Sir Edward Carson, was an Irish unionist politician, barrister and judge, who was the Attorney General and Solicitor General for England, Wales and Ireland, as well as the First Lord of the Admiralty for the Royal Navy. His authority as a unionist leader saw him elevated to the British War Cabinet as a Minister without Portfolio in 1917, and he was subsequently appointed to the judicial role of Lord of Appeal in Ordinary in the House of Lords in 1921, with the political title Lord Carson of Duncairn. Due to his political campaigns in both Great Britain and Ireland, he became widely regarded as the founding father of Northern Ireland.
From 1905 onwards, Carson was both the Irish Unionist Alliance member of parliament (MP) for the Dublin University constituency and leader of the Ulster Unionist Council in Belfast. In 1915, he entered the war cabinet of H. H. Asquith as Attorney-General. However, he was defeated in his ambition to maintain Ireland as a whole in union with Great Britain. Carson was instrumental in leading the Ulster unionist resistance against the British government's attempts to introduce home rule for the whole of Ireland, and later played a key role in forcing the resignation of Prime Minister Asquith in 1916. His leadership, however, was celebrated by some for securing a continued place in the United Kingdom for the six northeastern counties, albeit under a devolved Parliament of Northern Ireland that neither he nor his fellow unionists had sought.
Carson is also remembered for his open-ended cross-examination of Oscar Wilde in a legal action that led to plaintiff Wilde being prosecuted, gaoled and ruined. He unsuccessfully attempted to intercede for Wilde after the case. Carson died in 1935 and was given a state funeral by the British government. He remains a popular and controversial figure in both Ireland and the United Kingdom, with many analysts crediting him for establishing Northern Ireland as a separate entity to the Republic, and others critiquing him for undermining Irish nationalism.
Edward Carson, the second son of Edward Henry Carson, architect, was born at 4 Harcourt Street, in Dublin, into a wealthy Anglican family. The Carsons were of Scottish origin, Edward's grandfather having originally moved to Dublin from Dumfries in 1815. Carson's mother was Isabella Lambert, the daughter of Captain Peter Lambert, part of an old Anglo-Irish family, the Lamberts of Castle Ellen, County Galway. Carson spent holidays at Castle Ellen, which was owned by his uncle. He was one of six children (four boys and two girls). Edward was educated at Arlington House in Portarlington, Wesley College, Dublin and Trinity College Dublin, where he read law and was an active member of the College Historical Society. Carson graduated BA and MA.
He later received an honorary doctorate (LL.D.) from the University of Dublin in June 1901.
In 1877 Carson was called to the Irish Bar after graduating from King's Inns. He gained a reputation for fearsome advocacy and supreme legal ability and became regarded as a brilliant barrister, among the most prominent in Ireland at the time. He was also an acknowledged master of the appeal to the jury by his legal wit and oratory. He was appointed Queen's Counsel (Ireland) in 1889 and was Called to the English Bar at Middle Temple on 26 April 1893. He was twice admitted to the Inn, once on 1 November 1875 and then again on 21 April 1893, and was made a Bencher on 15 June 1900.
In 1895, he was engaged by the Marquess of Queensberry to lead his defence against Oscar Wilde's action for criminal libel. The Marquess, angry at Wilde's ongoing homosexual relationship with his son, Lord Alfred Douglas, had left his calling card at Wilde's club with an inscription accusing Wilde of being a "posing somdomite" [sic]. Wilde retaliated with a libel action, as homosexuality was, at the time, illegal.
Kevin Myers states that Carson's initial response was to refuse to take the case. Later, he discovered that Queensberry had been telling the truth about Wilde's activity and was therefore not guilty of the libel of which Wilde accused him.
Carson portrayed the playwright as a morally depraved hedonist who seduced naïve young men into a life of homosexuality with lavish gifts and promises of a glamorous artistic lifestyle. He impugned Wilde's works as morally repugnant and designed to corrupt the upbringing of the youth. Queensberry spent a large amount of money on private detectives who investigated Wilde's activity in the London underworld of homosexual clubs and procurers.
Wilde abandoned the case when Carson announced in his opening speech for the defence that he planned to call several male prostitutes who would testify that they had had sex with Wilde, which would have rendered the libel charge unsupportable as the accusation would have been proven true. Wilde was bankrupted when he was then ordered to pay the considerable legal and detective bills Queensberry had incurred in his defence.
Based on the evidence of Queensberry's detectives and Carson's cross-examinations of Wilde at the trial, Wilde was subsequently prosecuted for gross indecency in a second trial. He was eventually found guilty and sentenced to two years' hard labour, after which he moved to France, where he died penniless.
In 1908 Carson appeared for the London Evening Standard in a libel action brought by George Cadbury. The Standard was controlled by Unionist interests which supported Joseph Chamberlain's Imperial Preference views. The Cadbury family were Liberal supporters of free trade and had, in 1901, purchased The Daily News. The Standard articles alleged that Cadbury Bros Ltd., which claimed to be model employers having created the village of Bournville outside Birmingham, knew of the slave labour conditions on São Tomé, the Portuguese island colony from which Cadbury purchased most of the cocoa used in the production of their chocolate.
The articles alleged that George's son William had gone to São Tomé in 1901 and observed for himself the slave conditions, and that the Cadbury family had decided to continue purchasing the cocoa grown there because it was cheaper than that grown in the British colony of the Gold Coast, where labour conditions were much better, being regulated by the Colonial Office. The Standard alleged that the Cadbury family knew that the reason cocoa from São Tomé was cheaper was because it was grown by slave labour. This case was regarded at the time as an important political case as Carson and the Unionists maintained that it showed the fundamental immorality of free trade. George Cadbury recovered contemptuous damages of one farthing in a case described as one of Carson's triumphs.
Carson was also the victorious counsel in the 1910 Archer-Shee Case, exonerating a Royal Naval College, Osborne cadet of the charge of theft of a postal order. The cadet was from a quite prominent Roman Catholic banking family, and educated, both before and after Osborne, at Stonyhurst College. On this case, Terence Rattigan based his play The Winslow Boy.
Initially a radical Liberal, Carson's political career began on 20 June 1892, when he was appointed Solicitor-General for Ireland, although he was not then a member of the House of Commons. He was elected as Member of Parliament for the Dublin University constituency in the 1892 general election as a Liberal Unionist, although overall the Liberal Party won the election.
Carson maintained his career as a barrister and was admitted to the English Bar by The Honourable Society of the Middle Temple in 1893 and from then on mainly practised in London. In 1896 he was sworn of the Irish Privy Council. He was appointed Solicitor General for England and Wales on 7 May 1900, receiving the customary knighthood upon taking office. He served in this position until the Conservative government resigned in December 1905, when he was rewarded with membership of the Privy Council.