JAMES
MUIRHEADA SON of the late John William Muirhead, writer, and of Mary, daughter of the late Islay Burns, Surveyor of Customs at Glasgow, Mr. Muirhead comes of a family resident in the city for many generations, his great-grandfather having been a magistrate of Glasgow about 1782. He himself was born in Glasgow in 1851, and was educated at Gilbertfield, Hamilton, Glasgow Academy, and Cannstadt, Germany. He received his legal training in the office of Messrs. Bannatynes, Kirkwood, & McJannet, and was admitted a member of the Faculty of Procurators in 1874. He began business in 1876 in partnership with the successor to his father's firm, and after several changes his firm is now Baird Smiths, Muirhead, and Guthrie Smith.
For a number of years he was Clerk to the Burgh Commissioners of Hillhead, and he took a leading part in the Parliamentary contests with Glasgow over the question of annexation. In 1896 he was employed by the Convention of Royal Burghs to prepare a Consolidation Bill of the Statutes on Municipal Government in Scotland. After obstruction for several sessions this was carried through Parliament by Mr. Asher with the concurrence of the Scottish Office, and became the Town Councils (Scotland) Act of 1900. By this Act seventeen Acts, extending over a period of about eighty years, were wholly or partly repealed, and the whole subject was codified with important amendments of the law.
Following this, Mr. Muirhead was entrusted by the Convention with the duty of preparing and carrying through a Bill to amend and extend the provisions of the Burgh Police Act of 1892, under which the general police, road, and sanitary administration of burghs is mainly carried on. The Bill so prepared, after numerous adjustments with the Scottish Office and the officials of burghs, was introduced by Mr. Asher, and became law under the title of the Burgh Police (Scotland) Act of 1903. Mr. Muirhead also drafted the Town Councils (Scotland) Act of the same year to amend the Act of 1900, and supplied the first draft of the Bill which the Scottish Office carried through Parliament under the name of the Burgh Sewerage and Water Supply (Scotland) Act, 1901. He also prepared and assisted in carrying through the Paisley Police Act of 1901, on which to a large extent the 1903 Act was modelled; and he has for many years been largely consulted, by town councils and officials of burghs, on legal and administrative joints.
Besides editions, with explanatory notes, of the Acts in the carrying through of which he was engaged, he is the author of a standard work on "The Law and Practice of Municipal and Police Government in Burghs in Scotland," 1893, now in a second edition, of a short treatise on "By-laws and Standing Orders," 1895, and of the "Law of Meetings," 1907. He has also contributed several papers to meetings of the Society of Burgh Officials.
Mr. Muirhead married, in 1887. Robina, second daughter of the late John Spencer, merchant, Glasgow, and has two sons and two daughters. It may be mentioned that his brothers are Islay Burns Muirhead, M.D., London, John Henry Muirhead. M.A. (Oxon.), LL.D., Professor of Moral Philosophy in Birmingham University, a Snell Exhibitioner, well known as a writer on philosophical subjects, and the Rev. Lewis Andrew Muirhead, D.D., minister of St. Luke's United Free Church, Broughty Ferry, first Bruce Lecturer in the United Free Church College, Glasgow, and author of several theological works.