Friends of Hastings Cemetery

Hastings and St Leonards Observer - Saturday 11 August 1877 cont.

 In striking for his client, he often struck hard, and he would have believed himself false to his duty had he done otherwise; but had soul above the pettiness’s in which meaner nature and inferior intellects indulge, in the effort to vindicate client or overthrow adversary………….

He was the Ballantine of county solicitors, but the trusted friend of all.  It little mattered to him whether clients were rich or poor.  It was enough that they were his clients, and that they trusted in his honour to do what he could for them.  Thus it that he was peculiarly the lawyer of the working classes and the unfortunate.  By these, his name was treasured; by not few, idolised.  His demeanour before the magistrates was contagious of hope. I; was determined and uncompromising. ……………

It will easily understood, therefore, even by those who have known the deceased gentleman merely by reputation, that Mr. Langham lad no time outside his professional practice for participation what is known public life.  For very many years he held the position of legal agent to the Conservative party of this district of the county, and in this capacity that same marvellous common sense, acuteness, incisiveness of intellect, and love of work, were as manifest as in his more general legal practice. As a man, as a husband, as a father, no intrusion upon private grief to say that the companion passion to his work was his home.  After the day's fitful fever in law courts, or still closer labour of his chambers, his home was his haven, his rest. A devoted and beloved wife lived on with him, cherished by his side, the partner of his joys and his toils, preceding him in death by some five years. An able and scholarly son, too —Mr.T P.[Thomas Parker] Langham—was stricken down and detached from him in the vigour youth and pride of intellect…………..

.....the family name and fame survive; the spirit of the dead lives in his children, the glowing genius, the legal learning, the untainted honour, the bold intrepidity characteristic of him we all mourn, are the hereditary possessions of two sons, the Justices' Clerks of Hastings and Hailsham.

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Morning Chronicle Newspaper, Friday, December 17, 1858 - Page 8

On the 14th inst, at St. Clements Church, Hastings William John, third son of the late Lieutenant-Colonel Gant, J.P. for the county of Middlesex, to Augusta Caroline, third daughter of James George Langham. Esq. of Hastings.