1848–1923 · English barrister and judge; Master of the Rolls from 1919
William Pickford was called to the Bar in 1874, took silk in 1893, and was appointed to the High Court in 1907. He was raised to the peerage as Baron Sterndale in 1918 and became Master of the Rolls in 1919, holding that office until his death in 1923. He published no collection of sayings and left no written text of the line credited to him — it survives only because a barrister who says he heard him utter it, while Pickford was reading a case the younger man had looked up for him, wrote it down and sent it to The Times in 1932.