Horace Avory
Sir Horace Edmund Avory (31 August 1851 – 13 June 1935) was an
Biography
He was the son of Henry Avory, clerk of the
Avory was one of the most noted English criminal lawyers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He was involved in many sensational trials and became a household word as the most dreaded "hanging judge" of his age. He was called "thin-lipped, cold, utterly unemotional, silent, and humourless, and relentless towards lying witnesses and brutal criminals" and "impervious to bluff and merciless to perjury". He was nicknamed "The Acid Drop" in legal circles, due to his caustic wit in court.[2] In private life, however, he showed a different face.
Famous cases in which he appeared to include the trials of
His prosecution of Adolf Beck contributed to one of the most significant miscarriages of justice in English legal history. Beck was wrongly identified by ten women as a swindler and was sentenced to seven years.In recognition of his achievements, both Corpus Christi College (Cambridge), and the Honourable Society of the Inner Temple have student scholarships in the name of Horace Avory.
A portrait in oils by Charles Freegrove Winzer is owned by Corpus Christi.[6]
Death
According to
References
- ^ "Avory, Horace Edmund (AVRY870HE)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
- ^ Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (Centenary ed.). Harper & Row. 1970. p. 7.
- ^ O'Donnell (1935) p.190
- ^ "Robert Allen Coombes, Nathaniel George Coombes, John Fox".
- ^ a b "Foreign News: Tears for Acid Drop". Time. 1 July 1935. Archived from the original on 22 December 2011.
- ^ "Sir Horace Edmund Avory (1851–1935), Judge, Undergraduate (1870–1874), Honorary Fellow (1912–1935) | Art UK". Art UK. Retrieved 15 August 2020.
- Gordon Lang, Mr Justice Avory (1935)
- B. O'Donnell, The Trials of Mr Justice Avory (1935) ("It was written and published without my permission or communication with me.")
- Eric R. Watson, The Trial of Adolf Beck (1924) William Hodge and Company, Notable British Trials series