Born: Friday, January 30th, 1874
Died: Saturday, September 13th, 1930
Birthplace: Ray, Michigan
Religion: Episcopalian
Education: Hillsdale College, A.B. (1896)
University of Washington Law School, LL.B. (1901)
Career: Superior Court (1912-1926)
Served: Monday, January 10th, 1927 to Saturday, September 13th, 1930
Walter French was born in southern Michigan, the eldest of Ezekiel and Mattie (Mitchell) French’s six children. When Walter was a baby the family moved to Hillsdale, Michigan, where he later gained his education in the public schools. After high school he entered Hillsdale College, where he graduated in 1896. He then accepted a teaching position in Kansas. In 1897 French volunteered for the Spanish-American War, commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Twenty-second Kansas Volunteers. Immediately after his discharge that year he moved to Seattle.French and another future supreme court judge, Walter Beals, began their legal studies in the first law class of the newly formed University of Washington Law Department in 1899. During his studies French worked as a clerk and delivery boy for Hemphill Brothers Groceries. He became the first University of Washington law graduate to be admitted to the bar in 1901, and immediately formed a law partnership known as Sweeny, French, and Steiner. After his marriage in 1904, French moved to Alaska as an attorney for mining and coal companies. The next year he returned to Seattle and formed a prosperous partnership with Judge Clay Allen. In 1912 voters elected French to the Kitsap County Superior Court. He was reelected without opposition four subsequent times.
Several vacancies occurred on the supreme court during Governor Ernest Lister’s tenure, but the Republican chief executive refused to appoint the Democrat French. If he were to achieve a seat on the high bench, a personal goal, election appeared to be the only approach. In 1918 Warren Tolman defeated French for a two-year term on the bench. In his second try, in 1926, French unseated incumbent O. R. Holcomb for a full term. Between those elections French had served as visiting superior court judge throughout the state, helping jurisdictions with crowded dockets. Lawyers and voters across Washington came to know him, enabling him to unseat Holcomb. French’s service on the court was cut short by death on September 13, 1930 at the age of fifty-six.
Judge French had been relatively active in partisan affairs prior to his election as judge, serving as secretary for the state Democratic convention in 1910. He ran unsuccessfully for the state legislature from the Forty-sixth District and actively campaigned for William Jennings Bryan’s presidential drive. He belonged to several fraternal and veterans’ groups, including the Spanish-American War Veterans Organization, Masons, Elks, Shriners, and American Legion. He also belonged to the Arctic Club, Earlington Golf Club of Seattle, Tacoma Country Club, and Olympia Golf and Country Club.
In 1904 Judge French married Bessie Clark from Seattle. Her family came to Seattle in 1880, where her father became prominent in business and construction. They had no children.
Selected References
C. S. Reinhart, History of the Supreme Court of the Territory and State of Washington (n.d.), pp. 82-3; Lloyd Spencer and Lancaster Pollard, A History of the State of Washington vol. 3 (1937), pp. 4-5; Seattle Legal News, 24 Jy. 1915.
The preceding biography is from Charles Sheldon's The Washington High Bench: A Biographical History of the State Supreme Court, 1889-1991, © 1992 by the Board of Regents of Washington State University. Reprinted here with permission and licensed to the public under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License by The Temple of Justice Project.
