Cyril Radcliffe, 1st Viscount Radcliffe

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Lord of Appeal in Ordinary
In office
1949–1964
Personal details
Born
Cyril John Radcliffe

(1899-03-30)30 March 1899
Llanychan, Denbighshire, Wales
Died1 April 1977(1977-04-01) (aged 78)
Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England
NationalityBritish
Spouse
Antonia Mary Roby Benson
​
​
(m. 1939)​
Alma materUniversity of Oxford

Cyril John Radcliffe, 1st Viscount Radcliffe,

Law Lord best known for his role in the Partition of India. He served as the first chancellor of the University of Warwick
from its foundation in 1965 to 1977.

Background, education and early career

Radcliffe was born in Llanychan, Denbighshire, Wales, the son of an army captain. His maternal grandfather was President of the Law Society between 1890 and 1891.

Radcliffe was educated at

literae humaniores in 1921. In 1922 he was elected to a prize fellowship at All Souls College, Oxford. He won the Eldon Law Scholarship
in 1923.

He was

King's Counsel
in 1935.

During World War II, Radcliffe joined the

Brendan Bracken. In 1944 he was made a Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire
(KBE). He returned to the bar in 1945.

Indian Boundary Committees

Main article: Radcliffe Line

Radcliffe, a man who had never been east of Paris,[1] was given the chairmanship of the two boundary committees set up with the passing of the Indian Independence Act. Radcliffe was given the task of drawing the borders for the new nations of Pakistan and India in a way that would leave as many Sikhs and Hindus in India and Muslims in Pakistan as possible. He was given only 5 weeks to complete the job.[2] Radcliffe submitted his partition map on 9 August 1947, which split apart Punjab and Bengal almost in half. The new boundaries were formally announced on 17 August 1947 – three days after Pakistan's independence and two days after India became independent of the United Kingdom.[3]

Radcliffe's efforts saw some 14 million people – roughly seven million from each side – flee across the border when they discovered the new boundaries left them in the "wrong" country. In the violence that ensued after independence, estimates of loss of life accompanying or preceding the partition vary between several hundred thousand and two million,

Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire
in 1948.

Speaking of his experience as the chairman of boundary committees, he later said-

"I had no alternative, the time at my disposal was so short that I could not do a better job. Given the same period I would do the same thing. However, if I had two to three years, I might have improved on what I did."[2]

The poet W. H. Auden referred to Radcliffe's role in the partition of India and Pakistan in his 1966 poem "Partition".[5]

Later career

In 1949, Radcliffe was made a

Privy Council, and created a life peer as Baron Radcliffe, of Werneth in the County of Lancaster.[6] Unusually, he had not previously been a judge. In the 1940s and 1950s he chaired a string of public enquiries in addition to his legal duties and continued to hold numerous trusteeships, governorships and chairmanships right up until his death. He chaired the Committee of Enquiry into the Future of the British Film Institute
(1948), whose recommendations led to the modernisation of the BFI in the post-war period.

From 1957 he was chairman of the Radcliffe Committee, called to enquire into the working of the monetary and credit system. The committee published a report known as the

Romanes Lecture in 1963 on Mountstuart Elphinstone.[7]

In 1962 he was made a hereditary peer as Viscount Radcliffe, of Hampton Lucy in the County of Warwick.[8]

Personal life

Lord Radcliffe married Antonia Mary Roby, daughter of Godfrey Benson, 1st Baron Charnwood and former wife of John Tennant, in 1939. He died in April 1977, aged 78. He had no issue and the viscountcy of Radcliffe became extinct on his death.

In 2006, two sets of Chancery barristers' chambers in Lincoln's Inn merged and adopted the name "Radcliffe Chambers".[9]

Arms

Coat of arms of Cyril Radcliffe, 1st Viscount Radcliffe
Coronet
Coronet of a Viscount
Crest
[On a Wreath Argent and Sable] issuant from a Tower Or a Bull's Head Ermines
Escutcheon
Ermine four Bendlets engrailed Sable
Supporters
On either side a Black Labrador Retriever proper
Motto
Semper fidelis (Always faithful)[10]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ "The death toll remains disputed with figures ranging from 200,000 to 2 million."[4]

References

  1. ^ Partition: The Day India Burned (Television production). BBC. 14 August 2007. Archived from the original on 22 December 2021.
  2. ^ a b Know Your Constitution Quiz - EP 05, archived from the original on 22 December 2021, retrieved 18 February 2021
  3. ^ Pillallamari, Akhilesh (19 August 2017). "70 Years of the Radcliffe Line: Understanding the Story of Indian Partition". The Diplomat. The Diplomat. Retrieved 21 January 2021.
  4. ^
    ISBN 978-0-521-85661-4
  5. ^ Auden, W. H. (1976). Collected Poems. p. 604.
  6. ^ "No. 38627". The London Gazette. 3 June 1949. p. 2748.
  7. ^ "Romanes Lectures since 1892". University of Oxford. Retrieved 11 January 2014.
  8. ^ "No. 42729". The London Gazette. 13 July 1962. p. 5563.
  9. ^ "History of Chambers l Radcliffe Chambers". Archived from the original on 6 March 2016. Retrieved 5 March 2016.
  10. ^ "Radcliffe, Viscount (UK, 1962 – 1977)". www.cracroftspeerage.co.uk.

Further reading

Academic offices
New university Chancellor of the University of Warwick
1965–1977 		Succeeded by
Peerage of the United Kingdom
New creation
Viscount Radcliffe

1962–1977 		Extinct
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