Sir Joseph Nunan, K.C., who had a long career in the Colonial Service, died in St. Bartholomew's Hospital yesterday at the age of 61. The cause of death was cerebral hemorrhage.
Born in Limerick, he was called to the Irish Bar in 1898, after a brilliant academic career at Trinity College, Dublin; he was Bacon scholar of Gray's Inn, and was called to the English Bar in 1906. He went on 1900 to British Central Africa, where he was Chief Judicial Officer and Vice-Consul, and presiding Judge of the High Court fro 1902 to 1906., and a member of the Appeal Court for East Africa. He was appointed Attorney-General for British Guiana in 1912, and a member of the Executive Council and the Court of Policy, serving also on important commissions and committees. In 1919 and 1924 he was chairman of the deputation from the Colony to the British and Indian Governments.
At the end of the War he was British representative of the Reparations Commission held in Vienna, and chairman of the International Conference dealing with national debts with the Austro-Hungarian monarchy and of the Austro-Hungarian State Railways Conference. He retired in 1925 to practise at the English Bar.
Sir Joseph, who was knighted in 1924, was the author of "Islam Before the Turk" and "Ireland from Cromwell to Anne," and he edited for many years Timehri, a West Indian magazine. He was much interested in zoology, and was an honorary life member of the American Museum of Natural History and the New York Zoological Society. He was an honorary LL.D. of Dublin.