Colin Blackburn, Baron Blackburn

Colin Blackburn, Baron Blackburn (1813 to 1896) was a British lawyer and judge, the son of a Scottish clergyman, who was educated at Edinburgh Academy, Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge, and was called to the bar at the Inner Temple in 1838. For years he was better known as a law reporter than as an advocate, editing eight volumes of the Ellis and Blackburn reports, and in 1845 he published a treatise on the effect of the contract of sale on rights of property and possession in goods. Lord Campbell raised him to a puisne judgeship in the Court of Queen's Bench in 1859, a post he held until 1876, when he moved to the Court of Appeal. In October 1876 he became the first person appointed a law lord under the Appellate Jurisdiction Act, taking the title Baron Blackburn of Killearn. His judgments include Rylands v Fletcher, Taylor v Caldwell, Smith v Hughes and Foakes v Beer. He retired in 1886 and died in 1896.