Eardley Norton – lawyer outstanding

Eardley Norton

In 1879, twenty-seven year old Eardley Norton loathed the prospect of having to leave England for Madras. Having completed his school and college education and worked for a brief period as a journalist, he had made an unsuccessful attempt to gain a foothold at the English Bar. Emigration became inevitable and he felt like an exile, forced by the compulsion of circumstances to eke out a living in the sweltering climate of a faraway and near alien place. But, when he sailed Madras-bound aboard the Navarino in 1879, little could he have known that many great experiences awaited him in the distant land he did not want to go to.

Born in Madras on February 19, 1852 as the eldest of the eight children of the great – now all but forgotten – John Bruce Norton, once Advocate-General of Madras and a renowned public figure, Eardley John Norton lived in Madras until the age of ten. In 1862, he and Robert Bruce, the first of his brothers, were sent to Brussels to start their school careers. Then, having undergone school life for a brief period at Esher, Eardley and Robert went to Rugby, one of the famous Public Schools in England. The four years spent there gave him some of the happiest memories to cherish. Then he went to Merton College, Oxford, where his experiences were no less wonderful and memorable. Having graduated as a Bachelor of Arts, he worked for a while as a journalist in London. He was later called to the Bar at Lincoln’s Inn. Then for a brief period he practised in the Oxford circuit and was his father’s Junior in London in a few cases before the Privy Council.

When his career at the English Bar failed to take off, his father urged him to go to Madras where he (John Bruce Norton) was once Advocate-General and where his name might help the young Norton to get speedy work. This also coincided with the time when Eardley got married and became the father of a son. So, in the middle of 1879, with a heavy heart, he said goodbye to near and dear ones and what was to him home and left for Madras. After an uneventful voyage aboard the Navarino, he arrived in Madras in July 1879.

He enrolled at the Madras Bar and, being the latest entrant, was appointed Secretary of what in later times came to be known as the ‘Madras Bar Association’. In less than a year, he was made Deputy Coroner of Madras, an unpaid appointment, by Dr. Stanbrough, the then Coroner. When Stanbrough went on leave, Norton acted as Coroner and eventually was confirmed in that post, the only official position he held in his life and in which his tenure lasted for eight years until 1889, when the office was abolished. Thus, Eardley Norton was the last to hold the Coronership in Madras.

During the period of his Coronership, in 1886, the first year of Lord Connemara’s Governorship, a terrible conflagration, later termed the ‘Park Fire Tragedy’ happened in the People’s Park near the Central Railway Station. Several people died on the spot and later at the hospital. Norton presided as Coroner over the enquiry into the cause of the tragedy. The redoubtable Rev. Dr. Miller of the Christian College had suggested that the fire was the result of a pre-concerted scheme. At the end of the enquiry, it was held that the fire was the result of an accident and not incendiarism.

During the years when Norton was Coroner – the Coronership was a part-time employment – he was also a rising barrister in Madras. In 1886, the Garstin Dacoity Case before the Madras High Court created a profound sensation. Norton appeared for the defence and succeeded in the acquittal of the Bodinayakanur Zamindar, who was charged with committing dacoity on Garstin, a Senior Member of the Board of Revenue. Shortly after the conclusion of the trial, Sullivan, a Senior Member of Council and Member of the Civil Service, filed a case against Norton in the Madras High Court for statements of a defamatory nature made by him against Sullivan both before and during the Garstin Dacoity trial. This case put Norton through a great ordeal. Nobody competent enough to hold his brief came to his help and he was compelled to defend himself. If he lost this case, his career at the Bar would come to an abrupt end, for he would be suspended from practice. But he won and the astounding success in Sullivan v. Norton catapulted him into stardom at the Madras Bar. After that, there was no looking back. He emerged as practically the leader of the Bar and began to make a fortune. They began to call him the “Lion of the Madras Bar.”

During the years when he was the Coroner and a rising barrister in Madras, the Indian National Congress was started. Norton had inherited a sympathetic outlook towards Indians – ‘natives’ they were often called in those days – and their political rights from his father. It was but natural that he was attracted to the Congress. He first joined the movement at the Madras Congress of 1887. In his story, the 1887 Madras Congress is memorable for two reasons. Somebody had called him a ‘veiled seditionist’ for associating himself with the Congress movement. While speaking on the second day of the 1887 Congress, he gave a strong rebuttal to the charge, and this passage from his speech has since remained one of the most eloquent and powerful utterances decrying the misuse of the charge of sedition:

“I was told yesterday, by one for whose character and educated qualities I cherish a great esteem, that in joining myself with the labourers in this Congress, I have earned for myself the new title of a “veiled seditionist.” (Laughter) If it be sedition, gentlemen, to rebel against all wrong; if it be sedition to insist that the people should have a fair share in the administration of their own country and affairs; if it be sedition to resist class-tyranny, to raise my voice against oppression, to mutiny against injustice, to insist upon a hearing before sentence, to uphold the liberties of the individual, to vindicate our common right to gradual but ever advancing reform – (cheers) – if this be sedition, I am right glad to be called a ‘seditionist’, (cheers), and doubly, ay, trebly glad, when I look around me to-day, to know and feel I am ranked as one among such a magnificent array of “seditionist”. (Loud cheers)

Perhaps it would be no exaggeration to say that no account of the 1887 Madras Congress will be complete without mentioning the few garden parties that took place. Norton took the lead by hosting an exquisite party to the delegates of the Madras Congress and other guests at Dunmore House, his residence in Madras. The lambent moon had begun to shed a silvery beam on Madras on December 29, 1887 when the guests arrived at Dunmore House. Oil lamps on poles illumined the roadways and pathways leading up to the venue. Norton had arranged a ‘Kolattum’ (stick-dance) by nautch dancers, which “stern ascetics from Bengal” and other guests watched spellbound, while some others found literary repast in his vast library.

(To be concluded)

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