Thomas Bucknill

Sir Thomas Townsend Bucknill (18 April 1845 – 4 October 1915)[1] was an English judge of the Victorian and Edwardian eras, a Member of Parliament and a Privy Councillor.

[3] He sat as the Conservative Member of Parliament[1] for Epsom from 1892 to 1899, in which year he was raised to the bench, succeeding Sir Henry Hawkins, and was knighted.

[2] Bucknill was a prominent Freemason, having been initiated in 1873 into Lodge of Good Report No.136 and becoming the Provincial Grand Master for Surrey from 1903 to 1915.

[4] Among the notable cases tried before Bucknill was that in 1912 of poisoner Frederick Seddon, who, on being found guilty of murder appealed directly to Bucknill as a brother Mason and in the name of 'The Great Architect Of The Universe' to overturn the jury's verdict.

[5] He was the father of Sir Alfred Townsend Bucknill (1880–1963), also a High Court Judge and who became a Privy Councillor in 1945 and John Alexander Strachey Bucknill who served as Chief Justice of the Straits Settlements and Puisne Judge in Patna, India.

Mr Justice Bucknill as caricatured by 'Spy' in 1900
Mr Justice Bucknill sentencing Frederick Seddon to death in 1912. This is the only known photograph of the death sentence being pronounced in England.