WILLIAM DENMAN

WILLIAM DENMAN. Successful as have been the professional labors of William Denman, one of the leading attorneys practicing at the bar of San Francisco, they have not absorbed his energies to the exclusion of the general interests of the community. Being a man of broad outlook and practical ideas, he has long taken a determining part in public affairs, the present city form of government having been drafted by him. Whenever a public occasion demands a speaker not only of brilliancy, but also of good judgment, the management always turns instinctively to Mr. Denman, and if his services are secured he never disappoints the highest expectations.

A native son of the city he honors, and which has honored him, Mr. Denman was born at San Francisco in 1872. His parents were James and Helen V. (Jordan) Denman, and his father, a man of scholarly attainments, devoted his life to the cause of education, having been principal of the first school of San Francisco under the state system of education, and fifty-one years later retired from the city board of education as its president. The Denman family is one of the oldest in the country, having been established in the American Colonies in 1631.

From 1881 to 1885 William Denman was a student of the Clement grammar school; from 1885 to 1886 he attended the old Lincoln grammar school, and was graduated from the Lowell High School in 1889. Prior to entering the University of California in 1890 he punched cattle in Nevada for a year, thus gaining an experience which was to be of great value, not only to him but his community, for this knowledge of stock, and human nature as well, gained on the range taught him what to do during the great fire in San Francisco in 1906. He impressed over 100 teams, many at the point of a piston, and kept food supplies moving from the transport docks through the cinders while the city was yet burning, this saving the lives of thousands of the helpless refugees.

In 1890 Mr. Denman entered the University of California, and was graduate therefrom in 1894, following which he took a year’s course in the Hastings College of Law, and then entered the Harvard Law School, from which he was graduated in 1897 with the degree of Bachelor of Laws. Although he took an active part in both the athletic sports and military operations of the university, he also found opportunity to become a member of Phi Beta Kappa, the honor society. Returning to San Francisco, he was admitted to practice at the state bar in 1898, and immediately entered upon the practice of his profession.

Mr. Denman has had a broad and varied experience of a diversified nature, both in the Federal and State courts, and has been connected with some extremely important jurisprudence, especially in the maritime law. The litigation growing out of the sinking of the Rio de Janeiro, the explosion of the Progress, the collision of the Columbia and San Pedro, as well as other important cases he argued in the Admiralty Court, arousing interest in the profession and the community at large. From 1902 to 1906 Mr. Denman was lecturer and assistant professor of law at Hastings College and the University of California. In 1911 Mr. Denman formed a partnership with George Stanley Arnold, under the firm name of Denman & Arnold, with offices in the Merchants Exchange Building, San Francisco, and carried on a general practice. For several years, however, Mr. Denman has practiced alone.

While yet in college Mr. Denman became a member of the non-partisan party, and his faith in the ultimate removal of national parties from municipal elections was justified nearly twenty years later by the acceptance by San Francisco of the charter amendment drafted by him, prohibiting party nominations of the ballot. In 1908 the mayor appointed him chairman of a committee of public citizens to report on the cases of municipal corruption in San Francisco, and as chairman he drafted the report subsequently known by his name. Mr. Denman has also been very active in the work of the bar association, and organized the state-wide movement for the non-partisan election of judges. He campaigned, however, in opposition to the recall of judges at popular elections, advocating simplified procedure before the Legislature. He also defended the constitutionality of the eight-hour law for women; his opposition to the attempt of the American Protective Association to inject religion into politics; his drafting of the election law now in force in San Francisco; and his organization of the campaign for its passage and other public-spirited movements winning for him the strong support of the best element in his city.

On April 4, 1905, Mr. Denman married, at San Francisco, Miss Leslie Van Ness, a daughter of the distinguished attorney, T. C. Van Ness. Mr. Denman belongs to the University, the Pacific University, the Unitarian, the Commonwealth and the Siena clubs, as well as to the San Francisco Bar Association.

Transcribed by Elaine Sturdevant