Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 2.djvu/406

 excellent start, and brought him at an early period in his professional career the post of junior standing counsel to the Bank of England; for many years he was in the enjoyment of one of the largest junior practices at the chancery bar. He was made Q.C. on 4 May 1877, and a bencher of his inn on 4 July 1881. Though he possessed a sound knowledge of law and practice, he proved deficient in the qualities of a leader. He never obtained a firm footing in any one of the chancery courts, and his business dwindled to very modest proportions. He unsuccessfully contested, in the conservative interest, Coventry in 1880 and Barnstaple in 1885. There was some surprise in Lincoln's Inn when on the retirement of Vice-Chancellor Bacon [q. v.], in November 1886, Kekewich was appointed by Lord Halsbury to fill the vacancy, and he received the honour of knighthood early in the following year. On the bench Kekewich showed an expedition and despatch not usually associated with proceedings in Chancery; he had a thorough knowledge of the minutiae of equity practice, and was especially conversant with the details arising out of the administration of estates in chancery. But his quickness of perception and his celerity in decision were apt to impair the accuracy of his judgments, and he failed to keep sufficiently in control a natural tendency to exuberance of speech. Most kindly and courteous in private life, he was apt to be irritable on the bench. His judgments were appealed against with uncomplimentary frequency, and though he was occasionally avenged by the House of Lords, it was his lot to be reversed in the court of appeal to an extent which would have been disconcerting to a judge of less sanguine temperament. Several of his juniors on the bench were promoted over his head to the court of appeal; but by the legal profession his shrewdness, sense of duty, and determination to administer justice with the minimum of delay were fully recognised. He died after a very short illness on 22 Nov. 1907 at his house in Devonshire Place; there were no arrears in his court, and he had sent, a day or two before his death, his only two reserved judgments to be read by one of his colleagues. He was buried at Exminster near Exeter. Kekewich was a strong churchman and conservative. A man of fine physique and active habits, a keen shot and fisherman, he became in his later years an enthusiastic golf-player. His wife with two sons and five daughters survived him. A caricature by 'Spy' appeared in 'Vanity Fair' in 1895.



KELLY, MARY ANNE, 'EVA' (1826–1910), Irish poetess. [See under .]

KELLY, WILLIAM (1821–1906), Plymouth brother and biblical critic, only son of an Ulster squire, was born at Millisle, Co. Down, in May 1821. His only sister married a Canadian clergyman. He was educated at Downpatrick and at Trinity College, Dublin, where he graduated B.A. with the highest honours in classics. Left fatherless at an early age, he became tutor in the family of the then Seigneur of Sark. Though he was brought up as a protestant churchman he had leanings to Puseyism, but became a Plymouth brother in 1841, and shortly after left Sark for Guernsey. At the age of twenty-four he met John Nelson Darby [q. v.], the founder of the Darbyites (a seceding sect of the Plymouth brethren), became Darby's chief lieutenant, and edited his collected writings (34 vols. 1867-83). In 1879 Kelly supported Dr. Edward Cronin, who was excommunicated, in his dispute with Darby on a question of church discipline. Kelly and his party maintained the superiority of individual conscience over church control in matters not fundamental, but they remained true to all of Darby's narrow doctrinal views except as to the baptism of infants. Charles Haddon Spurgeon said of Kelly that he was 'born for the universe,' but 'narrowed his mind by Darbyism.'

After nearly thirty years (1844-71) in Guernsey, Kelly spent his last thirty-five years at Blackheath. He died at The Firs, Denmark Road, Exeter, on 27 March 1906, and was buried near his second wife in Charlton cemetery. He married (1) Miss Montgomery, of Guernsey; (2) Elizabeth Emily (d. 1884), daughter of H. Gipps, rector of St. Peter's, Hereford.

Shortly before his death Kelly presented his library of 15,000 volumes to the town of Middlesbrough.

Kelly was a prolific writer and lecturer on scriptural subjects. From 1848 to 1850 he edited the 'Prospect' and from 1857 to his death the 'Bible Treasury' (still in progress), periodicals devoted to the discussion of scriptural topics from the ultra-protestant point of view. From 1854-6 he contributed to the 'Christian Annotator,' for which [q. v.] and Philip