Jonathan Christian, SL, QC, PC (I) (17 February 1808 in Carrick-on-Suir, County Tipperary – 29 October 1887 in Dublin), was an Irish judge.^[1] He served as Solicitor-General for Ireland from 1856 to 1858. He was a judge of the Court of Common Pleas (Ireland) from 1858 to 1867 when he was appointed Lord Justice of Appeal in Chancery. On the creation of the new Irish Court of Appeal in 1878 he served briefly on that Court, but retired after a few months.^[2]

Christian was considered one of the best Irish lawyers of his time, but as a judge, he regularly courted controversy. His bitter and sarcastic temper and open contempt for most of his colleagues led to frequent clashes both in Court and in the Press. Though he was rebuked for misconduct several times by the House of Commons, no serious thought seems to have been given to removing him from office.

He was born in Carrick-on-Suir, third son of George Christian, a solicitor, and his wife Margaret Cormack. He was educated at the Trinity College Dublin,^[3] entered Gray's Inn in 1831 and was called to the Irish Bar in 1834.^[2] He married Mary Thomas in 1859 and had four sons and four daughters. He lived at Ravenswell, Bray, County Wicklow.

His early years at the Bar were not successful, and he admitted to being near to despair at times about his prospects. His practice lay in the Court of Chancery (Ireland): Chancery procedures then were extremely complex and he found them at first almost unintelligible. Gradually he mastered the intricacies of Chancery practice became a leader of the Bar, and took silk in 1841. It was said that his expertise in Chancery procedures left even the Lord Chancellor himself quite unable to argue with him.^[4]

He was appointed Law Adviser to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, an influential post which involved assisting the Attorney General and Solicitor General in advising the Crown in 1850, but resigned after only a few months, on the ground that it interfered with his private practice. He was appointed Third Sergeant later the same year but resigned in 1855, allegedly because he was disappointed at not receiving further promotion. Promotion did in time come his way: he was appointed Solicitor General the following year and a judge of the Court of Common Pleas in 1858. He was unusual in having no strong political loyalty: it was said that his political allegiance was known only to himself.^[5]

As a judge of the Court of Common Pleas, Christian got on well with his colleagues, and any dissenting judgements he wrote were short and courteous. It was after his appointment as a Lord Justice of Appeal in Chancery in 1867 that his behaviour began to attract unfavourable comment, as he went out of his way to court controversy on a wide variety of topics.

O'Hagan's retirement did nothing to lessen Christian's ill-temper; other judges came in for attack, including Chief Justice James Whiteside, whom he accused of speaking constantly on matters of which he was ignorant. In his later years, he seems to have been a lonely and isolated figure: his vigorous opposition to the Supreme Court of Judicature (Ireland) Act 1877 was entirely unsuccessful.^[5] A feeling of isolation may partly explain his decision to retire, though certainly his increasing deafness also played a part.

Delaney praises Christian as a great master of equity, a man of great learning and a judge with a great desire to see justice done,^[5] but he does not deny that Christian loved controversy. Even his supporters spoke of "arrows too sharply pointed "; critics spoke of his "spirit of personal sarcasm, cold, keen and cynical". No doubt Christian was genuinely concerned to uphold high standards of judicial conduct, but as Hogan points out, his own conduct struck most observers as far more improper than anything he complained of in others.^[11]