Author: Giffard, Ambrose Hardinge
Biography:
GIFFARD, Ambrose Hardinge (1771-1827: ODNB)
He was born in either Wexford or Dublin to John Giffard (q.v.) and his wife Sarah Morton of Co. Wexford. He was educated at various schools in Dublin—including one run by a Mr. William Dwyer whom he described as “of the Thwackum tribe” (Giffard)—before matriculating at Trinity College Dublin in 1785 where he was tutored by the Rev. Robert Burrowes and, for a time, by Theobald Wolfe Tone, Irish patriot. He earned his BA (1790), LLB, and LLD (1799), and was called to the bar of the Inner Temple in London and to the Irish bar in 1793. In Dublin he joined the Lawyers’ Corps of Yeomanry and served on the loyalist side during the Rebellion of 1798; he was later appointed captain of the newly formed Dundrum Infantry 3rd Company. In 1808 he married Harriet Pennell of Lyme Regis; they had five sons and five daughters although some died in childhood. The following year he was appointed advocate fiscal of Ceylon and in 1819, through the influence of his friend John Wilson Croker (q.v.), he became chief justice of Ceylon; he was knighted in the same year. He travelled to Ceylon without his family and he died on a return voyage when he was hoping to establish a home in Devon. Although he was buried at sea, there is a memorial to him in St Hieritha’s Churchyard, Chittlehampton, Devon. (DIB [under John Giffard] 28 Feb. 2021; ODNB 28 Feb. 2021; ancestry.co.uk 28 Feb. 2021; findmypast.co.uk 28 Feb. 2021; A. H. and Edward Giffard, Who Was My Grandfather? [1865]) SR