Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 3.djvu/306

 years sat in the House of Lords as a lord of appeal. Of these, one of the last, and by far the most important, was the appeal by the minority of the Free Church of Scotland against the judgment of the Court of Session which rejected the minority's claim to the whole property of the Free Church on union with the United Presbyterians. Six lords of appeal heard the arguments, which finished on 7 Dec. 1903. Judgment was reserved. Shand and two other lords were believed to uphold the judgment of the Court of Session; but on 6 March 1904 Shand died in London, and was buried at Kintore, Aberdeenshire. In consequence of his death the appeal was re-heard by seven judges, who, on 1 August 1904, by a majority of five to two, reversed the judgment under review, and gave the whole property of the Free Church to the small minority which had opposed the union. The unfortunate effects of this decision were afterwards partially remedied by a commission, appointed in 1905, under Mr. Balfour's administration, which distributed the property on an equitable basis (5 Edw. VII, c. 12).

In politics Shand was a liberal, but never prominent. He took a useful share in public business, was president of the Watt Institute and School of Arts at Edinburgh, an active member of the Educational Endowments Commission of 1882, and in Jan. 1894 was nominated by the speaker of the House of Commons chairman of the coal industry conciliation board. He wrote letters to 'The Times' on law reform, and frequently delivered lectures to public bodies on that subject, publishing addresses in favour of the appointment of a minister of justice for Great Britain (before the Scots Law Society, 1874); on 'the liability of employers: a system of insurance by the mutual contributions of masters and workmen the best provision for accidents' (before the Glasgow Juridical Society, 1879); and on technical education (before the Watt Institute and School of Arts, 1882). He was made honorary LL.D. of Glasgow in 1873, and D.C.L. of Oxford in 1895.

Shand married in 1857 Emily Merelina (d. 1911), daughter of John Clarke Meymott, but had no family. He was of unusually small stature. A portrait of him, by Sir George Reid, hangs in one of the committee rooms at Gray's Inn. A caricature by 'Spy' appeared in 'Vanity Fair' in 1903.  SHAND, ALEXANDER INNES (1832–1907), journalist and critic, born at Fettercairn, Kincardineshire, on 2 July 1832, was only child of William Shand of Arnhalt, Fettercairn, by his second wife, Christina (d. 1855) daughter of Alexander Innes of Pitmedden, Aberdeenshire. His father possessed a considerable estate in Demerara, but his income was greatly reduced on the abolition of slavery. The family then moved to Aberdeen, where Alexander, after being educated at Blair Lodge school, entered the university, graduating M.A. in 1852.

Declining an offer of a commission in the 12th Bengal cavalry, owing to his widowed mother's objection to his going abroad, he turned to the law. But in 1855, on his mother's death, he began a series of prolonged and systematic European tours. When at home he engaged in sport and natural history on the estate of Major John Ramsay, a cousin, at Straloch in Aberdeenshire. In 1865 he was admitted to the Scottish bar and, marrying, settled in Edinburgh. Owing to his wife's health he soon migrated to Sydenham, and while there he discovered his true vocation. After contributing papers n 'Turkey,' 'America,' and other subjects during 1867 to the 'Imperial Review,' a short-lived conservative paper under the editorship of Henry Cecil Raikes [q. v.], he began writing for 'The Times' and for 'Blackwood's Magazine,' and also joined the brilliant staff of John Douglas Cook [q. v.], editor of the 'Saturday Review.' To these three publications he remained a prolific contributor for life, although at the same time he wrote much elsewhere. 'He fluked himself,' he wrote, 'into a literary income' (Day of the Past). But although he wrote too rapidly and fluently to be concise or always accurate, his habit of constant travel, wide reading, good memory, and powers of observation made him a first-rate journalist. To 'The Times' he contributed biographies of, among others, Tennyson, Lord Beaconsfield, and Napoleon III (cf. 'Memories of The Times,' Cornhill Mag. April 1904), as well as descriptive articles from abroad, from the west of Ireland and the highlands of Scotland, several series of which were collected for separate issue. He was also an occasional correspondent for the newspaper during the Franco-German war (1870), republishing his articles as 'On the Trail of the War.' Shand at the same time wrote novels which enjoyed some success, but he showed