William Baliol Brett, 1st Viscount Esher PC, QC (13 August 1815 – 24 May 1899), known as Sir William Brett between 1868 and 1883, was a British lawyer, judge and Conservative politician. He was briefly Solicitor-General under Benjamin Disraeli and then served as a justice of the Court of Common Pleas between 1868 and 1876, as a Lord Justice of Appeal between 1876 and 1883 and as Master of the Rolls. He was raised to the peerage as Baron Esher in 1885 and further honoured when he was made Viscount Esher on his retirement in 1897.
Brett was a son of the Reverend Joseph George Brett, of Chelsea, London, by Dorothy, daughter of George Best, of Chilston Park, Boughton Malherbe, Kent. He was educated at Westminster School, King's College London and at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. Brett rowed for Cambridge University Boat Club against Leander Club in 1837 and 1838, then in the victorious Cambridge crew against Oxford University in the 1839 Boat Race.
Viscount Esher, of Esher in the County of Surrey, is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created in 1897 for the prominent lawyer and judge William Brett, 1st Baron Esher, upon his retirement as Master of the Rolls. He had already been created Baron Esher, of Esher in the County of Surrey, in 1885, also in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. His son, the second Viscount, was a Liberal politician and historian. His grandson, the fourth Viscount, was a noted architect. As of 2010 the titles are held by the latter's son, the fifth Viscount, who succeeded in 2004.
The heir apparent is the present holder's son the Hon. Matthew Christopher Anthony Brett (b. 1963)
The heir apparent's heir apparent is his son Jack Alexander Baliol Brett (b. June 1996)
William Brett may refer to:
Coordinates: 51°22′09″N 0°21′54″W / 51.3691°N 0.365°W / 51.3691; -0.365
Esher i/ˈiːʃər/ is a town in Surrey, England, to the east of the River Mole.
Esher is an outlying suburb of London, and with Esher Commons at its southern end, the town marks one limit of the Greater London Built-Up Area. Esher has a linear commercial high street and is otherwise suburban in density, with varying elevations, few high rise buildings and very short sections of dual carriageway within the ward itself. Esher covers a large area, between 13 and 15.4 miles southwest of Charing Cross. In the south it is bounded by the A3 Portsmouth Road which is of urban motorway standard and buffered by the Esher Commons.
Esher is bisected by the A307, historically the Portsmouth Road, which for approximately 1 mile (1.6 km) forms its high street. Esher railway station (served by the South West Main Line) connects the town to London Waterloo. Sandown Park Racecourse is in the town near the station.
In the south, Claremont Landscape Garden owned and managed by the National Trust, once belonged, as their British home, to Princess Charlotte and her husband Leopold I of Belgium. Accordingly, the town was selected to have a fountain by Queen Victoria and has an adjacent Diamond Jubilee column embossed with a relief of the monarch and topped by a statue of Britannia. Unite, the union, trains representatives at its Esher Place centre, and the town has the offices of Elmbridge Borough Council in its high street.
Esher is a town in Surrey, England. It can also mean:
Esher was a borough constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It elected one Member of Parliament (MP) by the first past the post system of election. In the general elections during its 47-year lifetime it was won by three Conservatives successively.
1950-1974: The Urban Districts of Esher (the civil parishes of Cobham, East Molesey, Esher, Long Ditton, Stoke D'Abernon, Thames Ditton, and West Molesey) and Walton and Weybridge (the civil parishes of Walton-upon-Thames and Weybridge).
1974-1983: The Urban District of Esher.
1983-1997: The Borough of Elmbridge wards of Claygate, Cobham and Downside, Cobham Fairmile, Esher, Hinchley Wood, Long Ditton, Molesey East, Molesey North, Molesey South, Oxshott and Stoke D'Abernon, Thames Ditton, and Weston Green, and the Borough of Guildford wards of Clandon and Horsley, Effingham, Lovelace, and Send.
Neighbours with borders of more than 2 miles (3.2 km) were: