Vernon Lushington Q.C. (8 March 1832 – 24 Jan 1912), was a
Positivist,
Deputy Judge Advocate General,
Second Secretary to the Admiralty, and was associated with
the Pre-Raphaelites.
Lushington was born in
Westminster, London, to
Stephen and Sarah Grace (née Carr) Lushington; his twin brother was
Godfrey Lushington, KCB GCMG, Permanent Under-
Secretary of State of the Home Office. He was educated at
East India College,
Haileybury,
Hertfordshire, and
Trinity College Oxford. He became a
Q.C., a
county court judge, Secretary to the Admiralty in 1871, and Deputy Judge Advocate General from 1878 to 1912. He married Jane Mowatt, daughter of Francis Mowatt, on 28 February 1865.
With his brother Godfrey, he advocated positivist philosophy, motivated by the ideas of
Auguste Comte, and was a follower of
Frederic Harrison. Influenced by
Frederick Denison Maurice, he joined the
Working Men's College as a teacher; he became part of the group that formed the first College governing Corporation in 1854. At the death of Maurice in 1872, he, with his brother, and
Frederick James Furnivall,
Thomas Hughes, and
Richard Buckley Litchfield, became a unifying force at the College.
He was a friend to artists, authors and activists, particularly those of The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and the
Arts and Crafts Movement who gravitated to the Working Men's College. In 1856, it was he who first introduced
Edward Burne-Jones to
Dante Gabriel Rossetti in his College rooms.[1] Rossetti used Lushington’s wife, Jane, as a model in 1865.
Lushington, friend of
William Morris, was a frequent visitor to
Kelmscott Manor. He was a close friend of
Leslie Stephen and his family; Stephen’s daughter
Virginia (later Woolf) based her character
Mrs. Dalloway on Lushington’s daughter Kitty. He was also a close friend of Working Men’s College founder Richard Buckley Litchfield and his wife
Etty, daughter of
Charles Darwin; the Lushington’s were regular visitors to Darwin’s
Down House. As
Thomas Carlyle’s friend, he edited Carlyle’s first "Collected Works", (Chapman and Hall, 1858).
From Venn’s
Adm. pens.
(age 19) at TRINITY, Jan. 17, 1852.
[4th] s. of [The Rt. Hon.] Stephen (Christ Church, Oxford, 1797) [Judge of the Admiralty Court and Master of the Bench of the Inner Temple] [and Grace, dau. of Thomas Wilson Carr, of Hampstead]. B. Mar. 8, 1832, in London.
Matric. Lent, 1852; Scholar, 1854; (Civil Law Classes, 1st Class, 1854-5); LL.B. 1859; LL.M. 1885.
President of the Union, 1854.
Adm. at the Inner Temple, Mar. 15, 1852.
Called to the Bar, Jan. 26, 1857.
Deputy Judge Advocate-General, 1864-9. Q.C., 1868.
Bencher, 1869.
Secretary to the Admiralty, 1869-77.
Judge of County Courts (Surrey and Berks.) 1877-1900.
Married, Feb. 28, 1865, Jane, dau. of Francis Mowatt, M.P., and had issue.
Author, Reports of Cases decided in Admiralty Court and on appeal to the Privy Council. Of Kingsley, Bordon, Hants.
Died Jan. 24, 1912.
(Scott, MSS.; Law Lists; Foster, Men at the Bar; Inns of Court; Burke, P. and B.; Who was Who.)