William Wood, 1st Baron Hatherley

William Page Wood, 1st Baron Hatherley, PC (29 November 1801 – 10 July 1881) was a British lawyer and statesman who served as a Liberal Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain between 1868 and 1872 in William Ewart Gladstone's first ministry.

Quotes

• In questions of international law we should not depart from any settled decisions, nor lay down any doctrine inconsistent with them.
  • Udny v. Udny (1869), L. R. 1 Sc. & Div. Ap. Ca. 454.

• When we talk of parental influence we do not think of terror in connection with it—that is not the primary idea—it is not terror and coercion, but kindness and affection, which may bias the child's mind, and induce the child to do that which may be highly imprudent, and which, if the child were properly protected, he would never do.
  • Turner v. Collins (1871), L. R. 7 Ch. Ap. Ca. 340.

• No doubt there are plenty of people in this world whom it is difficult to drive, but whom anybody can lead. It is well known that people who are generally most difficult to drive, are usually the most easily to be led by others who understand them.
  • Turner v. Collins (1871), L. R. 7 Ch. Ap. Ca. 340.

• It is not fair to criticise every line and letter of a summing-up which has been delivered by a Judge in trying a case, especially when there is a somewhat imperfect record of it.
  • Prudential Assurance Co. v. Edmonds (1877), L. R. 2 App. Ca. 494.

• Books are published with an expectation, if not a desire, that they will be criticised in reviews, and if deemed valuable that parts of them will be used as affording illustrations by way of quotation, or the like, and if the quantity taken be neither substantial nor material, if, as it has been expressed by some Judges, "a fair use" only be made of the publication, no wrong is done and no action can be brought.
  • Chatterton v. Cave (1877), L. R. 3 App. Cas. 492.