The Times/1912/Obituary/James Beresford Atlay

We regret to announce that Mr. James Beresford Atlay, a well-known man of letters, died yesterday.

He was born in 1860 at Leeds, of which town his father, afterwards Bishop of Hereford, was the highly-valued vicar. Young Atlay went to Wellington College, and in due course became head of the school and Queen's Medallist, and in 1879 he obtained an open scholarship at Oriel College, Oxford. He did well at the university, but distinguished himself rather in general and historical subjects than in pure scholarship, and in 1883 he obtained a first class in Modern History. In 1887 he was called to the Bar, and in the following year was appointed Registrar of the Diocese of Hereford, a post which he retained until 1910. His work henceforth lay chiefly in in legal and biographical publications among which may be mentioned "The Trial of Lord Cochrane" (1897), "Famous Trials of the 19th Century" (1899), and the most important book, more or less continuing Lord Campbell's celebrated work, "Lives of the Victorian Chancellors" (two volumes). He also, mindful of his time at Oxford, wrote the authorized Life of Sir Henry Acland, better known as the "Dr. Acland" who was the friend of Liddell, Ruskin, and other eminent men, and head of his profession in Oxford and its neighbourhood; and the authorized Life of Bishop E. R. Wilberforce, published this year. Mr. Atlay also edited the two standard books on International Law by Hall and Wheaton. In later years he was much employed as a "reader: by Messrs. Smith, Elder and was a copious and very useful contributor to the Dictionary of National Biography. In 1910 he was made a Special Commissioner of Income-tax.

The funeral will be at Brookwood on Tuesday, after service at Holy Trinity, Sloane-street, at 10.15.