John Walter Huddleston

Sir John Walter Huddleston (8 September 1815 – 5 December 1890) was an Irish judge, formerly a criminal lawyer who had established an eminent reputation in various causes célèbres.

[1] He suffered from chronic ill health during the last decade of his life before he died, aged 75, in South Kensington on 5 September 1890, with an expressed wish that he be buried with his wife.

[1] Initially practising on the Oxford circuit specialising in poor law cases, he developed his criminal practice at the Middlesex quarter sessions and at the Old Bailey, notably in the prosecution of William Palmer.

He was reputed to wear colour-coded gloves to court: black for murder, lavender for breach of promise of marriage and white for more conventional cases.

[6] In 1884 Huddleston was judge at first instance in the leading maritime case of R v. Dudley and Stephens involving murder, cannibalism and the defence of necessity.