Sir William Bartholomew Hackett (1824 – 17 May 1877) was an Irish judge who was the second

Chief Justice of Fiji The chief justice is Fiji's highest judicial officer. The office and its responsibilities are set out in Chapter 5 of the 2013 Constitution of Fiji. The Chief Justice is appointed by the President on the advice of the Prime Minister Prime Mini ...

and the 12th

Chief Justice of Ceylon The Chief Justice of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka is the head of the judiciary of Sri Lanka and the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka. Established in 1801, the Chief Justice is one of ten Supreme Court justices; the other nine are ...

. He was born in Cork, Ireland, the son of Bartholomew Hackett. He was educated at

Stonyhurst College Stonyhurst College is a co-educational Catholic Church, Roman Catholic independent school, adhering to the Society of Jesus, Jesuit tradition, on the Stonyhurst, Stonyhurst Estate, Lancashire, England. It occupies a Grade I listed building. Th ...

and

Trinity College Dublin , name_Latin = Collegium Sanctae et Individuae Trinitatis Reginae Elizabethae juxta Dublin , motto = ''Perpetuis futuris temporibus duraturam'' (Latin) , motto_lang = la , motto_English = It will last i ...

, graduating in 1846. He became a member of the Irish Bar on the Munster circuit, was called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn in 1851 and practiced mainly at the Chancery Bar. In October, 1861 he was appointed

Queen's Advocate The King's Advocate (or Queen's Advocate when the monarch was female) was one of the Law Officers of the Crown. He represented the Crown in the ecclesiastical courts of the Church of England, where cases were argued not by barristers but by ad ...

in Gold Coast acting as Chief Justice until confirmed in the position in April, 1863. The following year he was appointed Lieutenant-Governor of the Gold Coast. In 1866 he moved to south-east Asia to be Recorder of the Prince of Wales's Island (Penang Island). Recorder was a title given to some judges at the time
Singapore Legal History: The Development of the Court System
He was knighted on his appointment as Recorder and in 1871 was appointed Acting Chief Justice of the Straits Settlements. After heading up the courts as

from 1875 to 1876, he was appointed

on 3 February 1877, to fill the vacancy created by the retirement of

Edward Shepherd Creasy Sir Edward Shepherd Creasy (12 September 1812 – 17 January 1878) was an English historian and jurist. Life He was born the son of a Land Agent in Bexley, Kent, England and educated at Eton College (where he won the Newcastle Scholarship ...

. He remained Chief Justice for only a few months as he died in 1877 of cholera while in office. He was succeeded by John Budd Phear.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hackett, William 1825 births 1877 deaths People from County Cork People educated at Stonyhurst College Alumni of Trinity College Dublin Chief Justices of British Ceylon 19th-century British judges 19th-century Sri Lankan people British Ceylon judges Knights Bachelor Sri Lankan people of Irish descent Chief justices of Fiji Colony of Fiji judges Straits Settlements judges Deaths from cholera