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Sir William Bartholomew Hackett (1824 – 17 May 1877) was an Irish judge who was the second Chief Justice of Fiji and the 12th Chief Justice of Ceylon.

He was born in Cork, Ireland, the son of Bartholomew Hackett. He was educated at Stonyhurst College and Trinity College Dublin, graduating in 1846.

He became a member of the Irish Bar on the Munster circuit, was called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn in 1851 and practiced mainly at the Chancery Bar. In October, 1861 he was appointed Queen's Advocate in Gold Coast acting as Chief Justice until confirmed in the position in April, 1863. The following year he was appointed Lieutenant-Governor of the Gold Coast. In 1866 he moved to south-east Asia to be Recorder of the Prince of Wales's Island (Penang Island). He was knighted on his appointment as Recorder and in 1871 was appointed Acting Chief Justice of the Straits Settlements.

After heading up the courts as Chief Justice of Fiji from 1875 to 1876, he was appointed Chief Justice of Ceylon on 3 February 1877, to fill the vacancy created by the retirement of Edward Shepherd Creasy. He remained Chief Justice for only a few months as he died in 1877 of cholera while in office. He was succeeded by John Budd Phear.

References

1. "Obituary: Death of the Chief Justice of Ceylon". The Times. 21 May 1877. p. 6.
2. ^ "General News, 1877". thetablet. Retrieved 11 August 2016.
3. Recorder was a title given to some judges at the time :Singapore Legal History: The Development of the Court System.
4. Amerasinghe, A. Ranjit B. (1986). The Supreme Court of Sri Lanka : the first 185 years. Ratmalana: Sarvodaya Book Pub. Services. ISBN 955599000X.
5. "Overview". Judicial Service Commission Secretariat. Archived from the original on 19 October 2013. Retrieved 19 October 2013.
6. Ferguson, John (1996) . Ceylon in the Jubilee Year (Repr. ed.). Asian Educational Services. p. 254. ISBN 978-81-206-0963-1. Retrieved 7 January 2013.

v t e Chief justices of Sri Lanka
Carrington Lushington Johnston Giffard Ottley Marshall Norris Oliphant Carr Rowe Creasy Hackett Phear Cayley de Wet Burnside Bonser Layard Hutchinson Lascelles Renton Bertram Branch Fisher Macdonell Abrahams Howard Wijewardena Jayetileke Rose Basnayake Sansoni Fernando Silva Tennekoon Samarakoon Sharvananda Ranasinghe Thambiah de Silva Silva de Silva Bandaranayake Peiris Sripavan Dep Perera Jayasuriya

• 1824 births
• 1877 deaths
• Lawyers from County Cork
• People educated at Stonyhurst College
• Alumni of Trinity College Dublin
• Chief justices of British Ceylon
• 19th-century British judges
• 19th-century Sri Lankan lawyers
• British Ceylon judges
• Knights Bachelor
• Sri Lankan people of Irish descent
• Chief justices of Fiji
• Colony of Fiji judges
• Straits Settlements judges
• Deaths from cholera