The First Chief Justice of the Seychelles
By Julien Durup, a student of history
The first Chief Justice of the Seychelles was Sir Furcy Alfred Herchenroder. His grandfather, Jean Joseph Herchenroder, originated from Embrum near the lake of Serre-Ponçon, Hautes Alpes, and he arrived in 1791 at Isle de France (Mauritius) as a French military officer. He started his military career under his father in Switzerland, and later he became Captain of the 108 Infantry Regiment and Chevalier of Saint Louis. Jean Joseph Herchenroder died at Flacq, Mauritius, on the 16th of May 1877.
Alfred was born on the 26th of March 1865 in Mauritius, the son of Jean Baptise Arthur Herchenroder and Anna Van der Meerseh. He studied at the Royal College from where he obtained a scholarship in 1885 to study Law in England. He was called to the bar at the Middle Temple in 1888 and was married in the same year to Eleonor Alice Vinton of Rutland, England. They had seven children:- 5 sons and 4 daughters, out of which the following two daughters and one son were born in the Seychelles: Marie Berthe born on the 6th of March 1899 and a twins Marie Victor Marc and Marie Victoria Marcelle born on the 29th of January 1901. On his return to Mauritius he immediately started to work for the Crown Prosecutor. Five years later in 1898, he was posted as a magistrate to the Seychelles. Two years later he was promoted to Judge, and on 9 November 1903, when the Seychelles became a Crown Colony, he became the first Chief Justice.
Sir Furcy Alfred Herchenroder in November 1903
as Chief Justice of the Seychelles
He wrote, with the assistance of Alfred Karney Young, (the Crown Prosecutor and Legal Adviser in the Seychelles, who was later Knighted and became Chief Justice in 1909), 3 volumes on the Seychelles Local Laws 1872-1898, and 2 volumes of the Mauritius Laws, that were applicable to the Seychelles up to the year 1903.
Alfred was made King Counsel in 1905 and left the Seychelles for Mauritius to take up the post of Attorney General in April 1906. On the 1st of January 1913 he became Chief Justice of Mauritius and without delay he implemented a major reform to reduce the expenditure. He promulgated a regulation to allow certain cases to be presided by a single Judge, and this of course saved a lot of money. On 29th of June 1914 he was made Knight Bachelor.
After his retirement in 1929 he continued to work in the court library, and was working on the improvement of the bankruptcy laws. He went to Europe where he became ill in Paris and he died there on the 17th of January 1932.
When he was Chief Justice of Mauritius on the 20th of November 1919 he had the privilege of welcoming his son, Sir Marie Joseph Barnabé Françis Hechenroder, to the Bar, and who later also became Chief Justice of Mauritius. Marie Ferdinand Philippe was another of his sons. He too became a famous lawyer and worked in the Indian Civil Service. Ferdinand spoke a number of languages including French, English, Spanish, Italian, German as well as many Indian dialects. He even understood and read Russian, and in 1945 he was appointed Judge of the Federal Court in the Restitution of Germany until his death in London in 1968.
Ref:
- Dictionary of Mauritius Biography: pp.141-142.
- Julien Durup: The Seychelles Jurisprudence and Imposition of Law-1770-1990s. Unpublished
- Mauritius Illustrated: pp. 281
- Seychelles Birth Records: Heulwen Helene Pool and Daniela Johnstone: http/henri.maurel.pagesperso-orange.fr/
- Seychelles Blue Book, 1899-1904: Seychelles National Archives.
- The London Gazette, 31 July 1914.
- William McAteer: Hard Times in Paradise: pp. 195 & 228.