Charles Neaves
Encyclopedia
Charles Neaves, Lord Neaves FRSE (1800–1876) was a Scottish advocate
Advocate
An advocate is a term for a professional lawyer used in several different legal systems. These include Scotland, South Africa, India, Scandinavian jurisdictions, Israel, and the British Crown dependencies of Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man...

, judge, theologian and writer. He served as Solicitor General
Solicitor General for Scotland
Her Majesty's Solicitor General for Scotland is one of the Law Officers of the Crown, and the deputy of the Lord Advocate, whose duty is to advise the Crown and the Scottish Government on Scots Law...

 (1852), as a judge of the Court of Session
Court of Session
The Court of Session is the supreme civil court of Scotland, and constitutes part of the College of Justice. It sits in Parliament House in Edinburgh and is both a court of first instance and a court of appeal....

, the supreme court of Scotland (1854), and as Rector of the University of St Andrews
Rector of the University of St Andrews
The Lord Rector of the University of St Andrews is a university official chosen every three years by the students of the University of St Andrews...

 (1872).

Neaves was known as one of the early analysts of the history of evolution, and is often quoted regarding the subjects of evolution
Evolution
Evolution is any change across successive generations in the heritable characteristics of biological populations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins.Life on Earth...

 and women's rights
Women's rights
Women's rights are entitlements and freedoms claimed for women and girls of all ages in many societies.In some places these rights are institutionalized or supported by law, local custom, and behaviour, whereas in others they may be ignored or suppressed...

.

Life

Neaves was born in Edinburgh
Edinburgh
Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...

 in 1800, the son of Charles Neaves, a Forfar
Forfar
Forfar is a parish, town and former royal burgh of approximately 13,500 people in Angus, located in the East Central Lowlands of Scotland. Forfar is the county town of Angus, which was officially known as Forfarshire from the 18th century until 1929, when the ancient name was reinstated, and...

 solicitor and clerk of the Justiciary Court in Edinburgh. Neaves was educated at the High School and Edinburgh University. He became a member of the Faculty of Advocates
Faculty of Advocates
The Faculty of Advocates is an independent body of lawyers who have been admitted to practise as advocates before the courts of Scotland, especially the Court of Session and the High Court of Justiciary...

 at age 22. He married Eliza Macdonald in 1835.

From 1841 to 1845, he was Advocate Depute, and from 1845 to 1852 sheriff
Sheriff
A sheriff is in principle a legal official with responsibility for a county. In practice, the specific combination of legal, political, and ceremonial duties of a sheriff varies greatly from country to country....

, of the Orkney
Orkney Islands
Orkney also known as the Orkney Islands , is an archipelago in northern Scotland, situated north of the coast of Caithness...

 and Shetland
Shetland Islands
Shetland is a subarctic archipelago of Scotland that lies north and east of mainland Great Britain. The islands lie some to the northeast of Orkney and southeast of the Faroe Islands and form part of the division between the Atlantic Ocean to the west and the North Sea to the east. The total...

 islands. He became solicitor-general for Scotland in 1853, and served judge of the Court of Session from 1853 to 1858. From 1858 to his death, he was Lord of Justiciary, Scotland's supreme criminal court. Neaves lived the majority of his life in Edinburgh, but when associated with the Justiciary Court, he travelled to Glasgow
Glasgow
Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland and third most populous in the United Kingdom. The city is situated on the River Clyde in the country's west central lowlands...

 thrice yearly and Lord Neaves (although elderly and almost without hearing capability by the 1875) acquired a reputation in Glascow as a man of justice and evenness.

Charles Neaves had acknowledged skills as a composer of verse.

He was vice-president of the Royal Society of Edinburgh
Royal Society of Edinburgh
The Royal Society of Edinburgh is Scotland's national academy of science and letters. It is a registered charity, operating on a wholly independent and non-party-political basis and providing public benefit throughout Scotland...

 (1859–67, 1868–73 and 1874–76), and a president of the Heriot-Watt Institution
Heriot-Watt University
Heriot-Watt University is a university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. The name commemorates George Heriot, the 16th century financier to King James, and James Watt, the great 18th century inventor and engineer....

. From 1872 to 1874, he held the post of Rector at the University of St Andrews, the oldest university in Scotland. The Rector chairs meetings of the University Court, the governing body of the University of St Andrews. Neaves was a regular author of poetry and essays to Blackwood's Magazine
Blackwood's Magazine
Blackwood's Magazine was a British magazine and miscellany printed between 1817 and 1980. It was founded by the publisher William Blackwood and was originally called the Edinburgh Monthly Magazine. The first number appeared in April 1817 under the editorship of Thomas Pringle and James Cleghorn...

, only a fraction of his work having been republished.

Evolutionary analyst

As a judge of the Court of Session, Neaves was familiar with one of his predecessors, James Burnett, Lord Monboddo
James Burnett, Lord Monboddo
James Burnett, Lord Monboddo was a Scottish judge, scholar of linguistic evolution, philosopher and deist. He is most famous today as a founder of modern comparative historical linguistics . In 1767 he became a judge in the Court of Session. As such, Burnett adopted an honorary title based on his...

, to whom he credited the origination of the concepts of the theory of evolution. In 1875, Neaves published a poem within a book of verse to establish this point:
In another instance he elaborates on Monboddo's writings again in Blackwood's Magazine, indicating the clarity with which Monboddo foresaw evolutionary theory:

Poet and critic

Not only did Neaves produce poetry but he was a prolific critic, often in venues such as Blackwood's Magazine. One of his thematic elements was virtue, which naturally tied to his theological roots. He also conducted critiques of others' poetry based upon how their attitudes deviated from virtue and a common theme of under-recognition of women, as in the scalding criticism of the poet Thomas Carew
Thomas Carew
Thomas Carew was an English poet, among the 'Cavalier' group of Caroline poets.-Biography:He was the son of Sir Matthew Carew, master in chancery, and his wife, Alice daughter of Sir John Rivers, Lord Mayor of the City of London and widow of Ingpen...

.

Quotations

In Bartlett's Familiar Quotations
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, often simply called Bartlett's, is an American reference work that is the longest-lived and most widely distributed collection of quotations...

(Quote number 6171), as published originally in Darwin
Charles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin FRS was an English naturalist. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection.He published his theory...

's The Origin of Species
The Origin of Species
Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species, published on 24 November 1859, is a work of scientific literature which is considered to be the foundation of evolutionary biology. Its full title was On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the...

, he quipped on the subject of evolution:
This quote became so famous in that early era that the authorship of the quotation became a matter of public dispute. Although Bartlett and Darwin clearly attributed the quotation to Neaves, Zachary Macaulay
Zachary Macaulay
Zachary Macaulay was a slavery abolitionist and campaigner.-Early life:Macaulay was born in Inveraray, Scotland, the son of the Rev. John Macaulay Zachary Macaulay (2 May 1768 – 13 May 1838) was a slavery abolitionist and campaigner.-Early life:Macaulay was born in Inveraray, Scotland, the son of...

 argued that he had made this statement three years earlier.

Lord Neaves may have also been an early thinker on the issue of women's rights with the following quote, that would have bordered on heresy
Heresy
Heresy is a controversial or novel change to a system of beliefs, especially a religion, that conflicts with established dogma. It is distinct from apostasy, which is the formal denunciation of one's religion, principles or cause, and blasphemy, which is irreverence toward religion...

 in his era:

External links

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