Page:Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography volume 4.djvu/229

 VIRGINIA BIOGRAPHY

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department of the state government, legisla- ture, executive and judicial, has been graced by his participation in its works, and upon each has he left the deep imprint of his ability and personality, and his return to private practice gives to Norfolk a lawyer whose intimacy with his profession could not be more close and who pleads his cases with the advantage of a familiar knowdedge of the attitude and viewpoint of the judge of the court. The highest degree of legal learning is his, and in public and private life he is known as a gentleman of high pur- pose, strong determination, and upright con- duct. He returns to private pursuits only after having rendered the most distinguished of service in offices which, while closely linked, require widely different qualities in their incumbents.

It is as judge, however, that he is best known. His sense of justice is highly de- veloped, and this faculty, with the natural acumen of his mind, enabled him as a judi- cial officer to detect injustice and penetrate speciousness of argument as if by intuition. "Obtruding false rules pranked in reason's garb," before his court, was a dangerous and unsuccessful expedient. He was re- markable for the celerity and precision with which he dispatched litigated and adminis- trative business. The trial docket of his court was larger than that of any court in the state. It was always crowded at the beginning of each monthly term. His promptitude and assiduity were such, that when he retired from the bench there re- mained but a single case undecided. He was, also, distinguished for the accuracy of his learning in the difficult science of com- mon law pleading, as it obtains in the Vir- ginia practice. Not one of his decisions was ever called in question on matters of that nature. His judgment, once pronounced, was generally accepted as a precise state- ment of the law.

His leisure hours are devoted to literature and music. To his intimates he is known to be an accomplished musician and a poet of rare power and versatility. He excels in the skill with which he writes the Italian and French forms of metrical composition, and this was a sympathetic bond of union be- tween him and his kinswoman, Emily Law- less, as long as that accomplished poetess lived.

While secretary of state Mr. Lawless had

his residence in the capitol city, and in Rich- mond was a member of the Westmoreland and Commonwealth clubs. In Norfolk he belongs to the Virginia Club, and is also a member of the Atlantic Club, of Virginia I 'each, Virginia, and of the Westover Club, Willoughby Spit, X'irginia. His church is the Roman Catholic.

Joseph Thomas Lawless married, at the Cathedral, Richmond, X'irginia, Marie C, born in Richmond, X^irginia, daughter of Dominic and Catherine (Torpie) Antilotti, her father a merchant until his death. William A. Antilotti, of Athens, Georgia, is the only other living child of Dominic and Catherine (Torpie) x\ntilotti. Chil- dren of Joseph Thomas and Marie C. (An- tilotti) Lawless, all unmarried (1914) ; Gregory Benedict, born in Portsmouth, Virginia, ]\Iarch 21, 1891 ; Katherine Marie, born in Portsmouth, Virginia, May 10, 1892; Joseph Thomas, Jr., born in Richmond, Vir- ginia, July 29, 1894; Margaret Elward, born in Norfolk. Virginia, March 3. 1933 ; Law- rence Craddock, born in Norfolk county, Virginia, October 31, 1906; Valentine Browne', born in Norfolk, Virginia, April 19, 1908; Edward Kirwan, born in Norfolk, X'irginia, August 10, 1910.

Walter L. McCorkle. Walter Lisle Mc- Corkle, a well known attorney of New York, was born March 14, 1854, at Lexington, Vir- ginia, son of W^illiam Henry and Virginia (Wilson) McCorkle. The family is an old one in America. Persons of the name came to America from the North of Ireland, in the early part of the eighteenth century, and settled in Virginia, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania. A family of the name settled in Rockbridge county, Virginia, in 1760, and from this branch Walter L. McCorkle is de- scended. Many of the family have been dis- tinguished in the revolutionary, Mexican and civil wars. The ancient form of the name in classic Gaelic is MacCorkaill or Mac (Th)orkaill, the letter "t" followed by an aspirate being silent in Gaelic pronuncia- tion. The name is derived from the per- sonal name "Torquil" or "Corcaill," which is often found as applied to warriors and legislators in ancient Gaelic annals, and the full surname has the meaning of "the son or descendant of Corkaill." The references to the family are meagre in ordinary gene- alogical annals in Ireland and Scotland, but