Henry William Austin (1825–1893) was a Canadian lawyer, Chief Justice of the Bahamas from August 1880. He was forced to resign in 1890. His memoirs Ten years Chief Justice of the Bahamas, 1880–1890 in fact cover only the last two years of his time in post, and the incidents of the Lucile case, Sands case and Taylor case that led to his removal. Early life and background He was son of Thomas Austin of Clifton, Bristol. Thomas Austin (1801–1890) was an army officer and a member of the Special Council of Lower Canada. He was a son of the Rev. Hugh Williams Austin, of St Peter's, Barbados. He was a first cousin of William Piercy Austin; several of his father's brothers, sons of Col. Thomas Austin (died 1806) of Barbados, were slave-owners in Surinam and British Guiana, including William Austin the father of William Piercy Austin. Henry William Austin's mother was Charlotte Whitchurch. The family settled in Lennoxville, Quebec in the 1830s, where his father Thomas was involved, unsuccessfully, in setting up a brewery. Thomas Austin commanded a militia regiment in the Eastern Townships during the Lower Canada Rebellion, and was brought onto the Special Council in 1838 by Sir John Colborne, as a replacement for Ichabod Smith of Stanstead. Later the family was in Chambly, Quebec. Thomas Austin acted as Returning Officer for Chambly County, in 1850. Austin qualified to practise law, called to the Bar of Lower Canada in 1848. Chief Justice of the Bahamas The situation described by Martin Wiener on Austin's appointment as Chief Justice of the Bahamas in 1880 was of domination by "Bay Street", a clique of white landowners and merchants. He was the first judge there who was not from the colony. Wiener characterises him as "a conservative man, lacking noticeable sympathy for the black majority". The population of around 70,000 included then under 5,000 whites, with also many of mixed race. Austin fell out with Ormond Drimmie Malcolm, Attorney-General in Bahamas and of the Bay Street group, early in his tenure. The arrival in 1884 of the reforming Henry Arthur Blake as Governor saw moves to promote racial equality and economic equity, and a justice system that would convict white criminals. Louis Diston Powles, an English barrister, was in 1886 brought in as an itinerant judge. Austin accepted an appeal brought by Malcolm in the contentious Lightbourn murder case, overturning the guilty