Alured Dumbell

Sir Alured Dumbell MLC (1835 - 1900) was Clerk of the Rolls of the Isle of Man and the most senior judge there.

Dumbell was the son of the well known banker, lawyer and politician George Dumbell MHK and was educated at a private school in Douglas. He then entered the firm of Harris and Adams as a law student. He was admitted to the Bar in 1858 and soon acquired a large practice in the north of the island. He became High Bailiff of Ramsey in 1873 then Second Deemster in 1880, and finally Clerk of the Rolls in 1883. Shortly before his death, he was knighted in 1899, and also acted as Deputy Governor of the Isle of Man.

That Sir Alured Dumbell was a man of great ability, but the success which he achieved in the legal profession was not so much due to the possession of any very exceptional degree of forensic acumen, but to his ready wit his practical business-like instincts, and his uncommon powers of penetration, combined with an integrity of purpose that was never absent from anything in his public career. In the Legislature, though his work was largely confined to criticism of others, he was, nevertheless, not only an influential but a very useful member, and, on its committees, in particular he did good service. Apart from his legal and legislative work his chief interest was in agriculture, of which he had considerable knowledge. He was a prominent member of the insular Agricultural Society, and some years ago, took the leading part in settling a dispute which arose between its northern and southern members. He is certainly one of the ablest men this island has produced during the present century.