| William Shepard Bryan | |
| Birth Date: | 20 November 1827 |
| Birth Place: | New Bern, North Carolina |
| Death Place: | Baltimore, Maryland |
| Resting Place: | Green Mount Cemetery |
| Children: | 4, including William Shepard Jr. |
| Education: | University of North Carolina |
| Signature: | Signature of William Shepard Bryan (1827–1906).png |
| Party: | Democratic |
| Office: | Justice of the Maryland Court of Appeals |
| Term Start: | 1883 |
| Term End: | 1898 |
William Shepard Bryan (November 20, 1827 – December 9, 1906)[1] [2] was a Maryland lawyer who served as a justice of the Maryland Court of Appeals from 1883 to 1898.[3]
Born in New Bern, North Carolina, he was the son of Congressman John Heritage Bryan.[4] Bryan "received his early general and education in the South".[2] He graduated from the University of North Carolina and read law under the supervision of his father.[4] He moved to Baltimore in 1850, and read law to gain admission to the bar in Maryland in 1851, thereafter entering the practice of law.[4] [2] He was a southern sympathizer during the American Civil War,[2] and was a presidential elector in the 1876 United States presidential election.[2]
In 1883, Bryan was elected as a Democrat to the Baltimore seat on the Court of Appeals vacated by the resignation of Judge James Lawrence Bartol.[4] As the only judge with no circuit duties to perform, he "delivered the opinion of the court in a large number of cases, many of them being of great importance and public interest".[4] He retired from the court in 1898.[1]
On October 1, 1857, Bryan married Elizabeth "Lizzie" Edmondson Hayward of Talbot County, Maryland, with whom he had a daughter and three sons.[1] [2] Bryan's wife died in 1898.[1] [2] Bryan himself died of liver cancer eight years later, at the age of 79,[2] at the home of his son, William Shepard Jr., who was then attorney general of the state.[1] He was interred in Baltimore's Green Mount Cemetery.[2]