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Sir Lionel Mabbott Woodward, Chief Justice Of The Federated Malay States (1921)
Sir Lionel Mabbott Woodward (Jnr.) born in London, 9th September 1864, the son of Lionel Mabbot Woodward (Snr.) was educated at Harrow and at Trinity College, Cambridge and entered the Straits Settlements Civil Service in 1888 as a cadet and was appointed to assist the Indian Immigration Agent in Penang. Sir Lionel has language qualifications in Tamil, Hindustani, and Malay, presumably picked it up as he was assisting the Indian Immigration Agent. He married Kathleen Tarifa Gibbons, the youngest daughter of Lieutenant-Colonel F. F. Gibbons of the Devonshire Regiment in 1897 and had issue.
In 1904 he became the deputy public prosecutor in Singapore and was later appointed as the Junior Judicial Commisioner for the Federated Malay States (FMS) in 1906. Sir Lionel became the acting Chief Justice of the FMS on two occasions, in 1914-1915 and again in 1919. In 1915 he was appointed as a Puisne judge or in definition a junior judge.
He was later appointed as the Chief Judicial Commissioner (Chief Justice of the FMS) in 1921 and was subsequently knighted in 1922 by King George V. On the 6th of September 1925, Sir Lionel took his own life while at the hospital in Kuala Lumpur. He was to travel back to England to be operated upon.
He resided in Ipoh, where he won much popularity and in honouring the work he has done in Perak, a road in between Jalan Kelab Golf and Jalan Dato Seri Saari was named after him, Jalan Woodward.
Sir Lionel was succeeded by Sir Edward Gompertz in 1926.