William Alexander Hunter (8 May 1844 – 21 July 1898) was a Scottish jurist and Liberal politician.
Hunter was born in Aberdeen, the son of James Hunter, a granite merchant, of Aberdeen. He was educated at Aberdeen grammar school and university. He entered the Middle Temple, and was called to the English bar in 1867, but then was occupied mainly with teaching. In 1869 he was appointed professor of Roman law at University College, London, and in 1878 professor of jurisprudence, resigning that chair in 1882.
Hunter's name became well known during this period as the author of a standard work on Roman law, Roman Law in the Order of a Code, together with a smaller introductory volume for students, Introduction to Roman Law.
After 1882 Hunter took up politics and was elected to parliament for Aberdeen North as a Liberal at the 1885 general election. In the House of Commons he was a prominent supporter of Charles Bradlaugh; he was the first to advocate old age pensions, and in 1890 carried a proposal to free elementary education in Scotland. In 1895 his health broke down; he resigned his seat in Parliament on 24 April 1896 by taking the Chiltern Hundreds.
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“I thought when I was a young man that I would conquer the world with truth. I thought I would lead an army greater than Alexander ever dreamed of. Not to conquer nations, but to liberate mankind. With truth. With the golden sound of the Word. But only a few of them heard. Only a few of you understood. The rest of you put on black and sat in chapel.”
—Philip Dunne (1908–1992)
“There was the murdered corpse, in covert laid,
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Successless wars, and poverty behind;
Ships burnt in fight, or forced on rocky shores,
And the rash hunter strangled by the boars;
The newborn babe by nurses overlaid;
And the cook caught within the raging fire he made.”
—Geoffrey Chaucer (1340?–1400)