David Maxwell Fyfe, 1st Earl of Kilmuir

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Sir Walter Monckton
Personal details
Born29 May 1900 (1900-05-29)
UK
NationalityBritish
Political partyConservative
SpouseSylvia Harrison (m. 1925)
Children3
Alma materBalliol College, Oxford

David Patrick Maxwell Fyfe, 1st Earl of Kilmuir,

PC (29 May 1900 – 27 January 1967), known as Sir David Maxwell Fyfe from 1942 to 1954 and as Viscount Kilmuir from 1954 to 1962, was a British Conservative politician, lawyer and judge who combined an industrious and precocious legal career with political ambitions that took him to the offices of Solicitor General, Attorney General, Home Secretary and Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain
.

One of the

Nuremberg Trials, he subsequently played a role in drafting the European Convention on Human Rights. As Home Secretary he led a crackdown against homosexuals in the UK in the 1950s, and declined to commute Derek Bentley's death sentence for the murder of a police officer. His political ambitions were ultimately dashed in Harold Macmillan's cabinet reshuffle
of July 1962.

Early life

Born in

called to the bar in 1922. He became a pupil of George Lynskey in Liverpool then joined his chambers to practise.[3] Maxwell Fyfe later wrote that his ambition was to be a silk (King's Counsel) in his thirties, a minister in his forties and at the top of the legal profession in his fifties.[4]

Not pausing before beginning his political career in earnest, he stood as a Conservative for Wigan in 1924, an unwinnable parliamentary seat. He cultivated the more winnable Spen Valley until 1929 when the party resolved not to oppose sitting Liberal Member of Parliament (MP) Sir John Simon while he was absent on the Simon Commission in India. Maxwell Fyfe was eventually elected to Parliament in Liverpool West Derby in a by-election in July 1935.[3]

Meanwhile, Maxwell Fyfe's legal career had prospered. In 1934 he became King's Counsel.[5] He was Recorder of Oldham from 1936 to 1942.[3]

Early political career

Maxwell Fyfe, along with

Political career of Rab Butler (1941-1951)).[3]

Into government and on to Nuremberg

Sir David Maxwell Fyfe (centre) and an unknown prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials

In March 1942, Sir

Nuremberg Trials; at the time, however, as a member of the government he had little choice but to follow the lead of the Prime Minister, Churchill, who repeatedly urged that summary justice be visited upon the Nazi leaders.[8] When the war in Europe ended and the coalition was dissolved in May 1945, Maxwell Fyfe was briefly Attorney-General in Churchill's caretaker government.[3]

The Labour Party won a landslide victory in the United Kingdom general election of 1945 and Sir Hartley Shawcross became Attorney General and took responsibility as Britain's chief prosecutor in the Nuremberg Trials. Shawcross, to emphasise the non-partisan nature of the trials, appointed Maxwell Fyfe his deputy. Shawcross was largely committed to his political duties in Westminster and played little part other than delivering the opening and closing speeches. Maxwell Fyfe took on most of the day-to-day responsibilities as "capable lawyer, efficient administrator and concerned housemaster".[9] There were misgivings in some quarters as to how Fyfe would perform, cross-examination not being regarded as one of his strengths. However, his cross-examination of Hermann Göring was one of the most noted cross-examinations in history.[3]

Opposition

After Nuremberg, Maxwell Fyfe returned to Parliament to

court. He was assisted in his punishing schedule by his wife Sylvia, herself a Conservative Party worker.[3] In 1945-51 he earned an annual average of £25,000.[10]

Maxwell Fyfe played a leading role in drafting the party's Industrial Charter of 1947 and chaired the committee into Conservative Party organisation that resulted in the Maxwell Fyfe Report (1948–49). The report shifted the responsibility of funding electoral expenditure from the candidate to the constituency party, with the intention of broadening the diversity of MPs by making it harder for local associations to demand large personal donations from candidates. In practice, it may have had the effect of lending more power to constituency parties and making candidates more uniform.[3]

Maxwell Fyfe was a champion of

libel action against Maxwell Fyfe.[3]

Return to government

Home Secretary

Shortly before the

Home Secretary and cabinet minister for Welsh affairs. He was responsible for guiding several complicated pieces of legislation through the Commons, in particular those that established commercial television. He gained a reputation as a hard-working, thorough and reliable cabinet member.[3]

In 1952, the

civil servants chaired by Sir Edward Bridges. The committee put forward Dick White and Sir Kenneth Strong. Maxwell Fyfe endorsed the committee's preference for White, observing to Churchill that an internal appointment would be good for the morale of the service.[13]

Fyfe's assumption of office as Home Secretary heralded a reign of fear for male homosexuals. A stern advocate of existing legislation criminalising homosexual acts, he started a campaign to “rid England of this male vice … this plague”

Wolfenden Report into homosexuality, but had he known its findings would recommend decriminalisation, it is unlikely he would have done so.[citation needed
]

A conservative on the death penalty, Kilmuir was likewise conservative on the issue of homosexual rights, and led the opposition in the House of Lords to the implementation of the

Wolfenden Committee report, which had recommended the decriminalisation of homosexual acts between consenting adults
.

This was ironic, says

Sir Robert Boothby, who was known in parliamentary circles to be bisexual, that it was not his intention to legalise homosexuality: "I am not going down in history", he told Boothby, "as the man who made sodomy legal."[17]

During his tenure as Home Secretary, he was embroiled in the controversy surrounding the hanging of Derek Bentley.[3] Maxwell Fyfe had controversially refused to grant a reprieve to Bentley despite the written petitions of 200 MPs and the claim that Bentley was mentally retarded allegedly having a mental age of only 11.[18] However, on most issues he was on the progressive wing of the Conservative Party, opposing the proposals in 1953 for the re-introduction of corporal punishment.[3]

Lord Chancellor

Maxwell Fyfe remained ambitious and a Daily Mirror opinion poll in 1954, on the popular favourite to succeed Churchill as Party leader and prime minister, had him behind Eden and Butler but well ahead of Macmillan.[3] In his memoirs (Political Adventure, p233) he later wrote that he had hoped to emerge as a compromise leader like Bonar Law in 1911 if Eden and Butler, both of whom he regarded as personal friends, found themselves in a dead heat.[19] However, once it was clear that Eden was to be Churchill's successor, he sought the office of Lord Chancellor.[3]

On 19 October 1954 he was raised to the peerage as Viscount Kilmuir, of

United Nations Charter.[3]

He continued in this office in the governments of Anthony Eden and Harold Macmillan until Macmillan's 1962 "Night of the Long Knives", when he was abruptly replaced by Sir Reginald Manningham-Buller, the Attorney-General. Kilmuir was made Baron Fyfe of Dornoch, of Dornoch in the County of Sutherland, and Earl of Kilmuir on 20 July 1962[21] to cushion the blow of retirement.[3][22] He is said to have complained to Macmillan that he was being sacked with less notice than would be given to a cook, to which Macmillan replied that it was easier to get Lord Chancellors than good cooks.[23]

After government

After government, Kilmuir joined the board of directors of Plessey but his health soon declined. He died at Withyham, Sussex, on 27 January 1967 and was cremated. His ashes were buried at the church of St Michael and All Angels at Withyham. His wealth at death was £22,202. His titles, which could pass only to sons, became extinct, as he had fathered only daughters.[3]

Family and personality

He married

Sir Rex Harrison.[3]

Kilmuir was a formidable parliamentary presence on behalf of his party, and his remarkable memory compensated for a dull speaking style, though he was capable of passion when the circumstances were right. In appearance, "His body was pear-shaped, and beneath a large square bald head there were dark heavy eyebrows and a face of middle-eastern pallor and swarthiness".[3]

As Home Secretary, he often travelled to Wales, and in the valleys of South Wales he was nicknamed Dai Bananas, Fyffes being, then as now, one of Britain's major importers of the fruit.[24]

Honours

Among his honours were:[3]

Coat of arms of David Maxwell Fyfe, 1st Earl of Kilmuir
Coronet
Coronet of an earl
Crest
A Demi-Lion rampant Gules armed and langued Azure between six Ears of Wheat Or three on each side
Escutcheon
Or a Lion rampant Gules armed and langued Azure on a Chief of the second a Water Bouget between two Mullets a Bordure invected Argent
Supporters
Dexter: A Griffin Or gorged with a Collar Gules charged with a Water Bouget between two Mullets Argent; Sinister: A Dragon Gules armed and langued Vert gorged with a collar of the same embordured invected Argent
Motto
Decens et honestum [28]

Portrayal in drama

David Maxwell Fyfe has been portrayed by the following actors in film, television and theatre productions;[29]

References

  1. ^ Cracroft's Peerage.
  2. ^ Kelly's Handbook to the Titled, Landed and Official Classes, 1945. Kelly's. p. 763. Also stated in Burke's Peerage and Who Was Who but omitted from sketches in both the Dictionary of National Biography (1961–1970 Supplement) and the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t Dutton (2004).
  4. ^ Jago 2015, p.244
  5. ^ "No. 34025". The London Gazette. 20 February 1934. p. 1152.
  6. ^ The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography more precisely puts it as the Army Officers' Emergency Reserve.
  7. ^ Richard Overy, Interrogations: The Nazi Elite in Allied Hands, 1945 (New York: Viking, 2001), p. 11.
  8. ^ Overy, p. 6.
  9. ^ Tusa & Tusa (1983), p. 136.
  10. ^ Jago 2015, p.244
  11. ^ Political Adventure, The Memoirs of the Earl of Kilmuir (1964).
  12. ^ Andrew (2009), pp. 322–323.
  13. ^ Andrew (2009), pp. 323–324.
  14. ^ Jenkins, Simon, "Make mine a glass of cannabis wine, thank you", The Guardian (Manchester), 19 October 2018.
  15. ^ a b Stewart, Graham "The Accidental Legacy of a Homophobic Humanitarian", The Times (London), 2 October 2000.
  16. ^ a b Geraldine Bedell, "Coming out of the dark ages" Archived 31 August 2013 at the Wayback Machine, The Observer, London, 24 June 2007.
  17. .
  18. ^ "Derek William Bentley "A victim of British justice?"". Archived from the original on 4 October 2006. Retrieved 2006-10-04.
  19. ^ Jago 2015, p.244
  20. ^ "No. 40304". The London Gazette. 19 October 1954. p. 5913.
  21. ^ "No. 42740". The London Gazette (Supplement). 24 July 1962. p. 5909.
  22. ^ Alderman (1992).
  23. ^ Thorpe 1989, p. 349.
  24. ^ Peter Hennessy, Having It So Good, Britain in the Fifties (Allen Lane, 2006) p. 265. Quoted from Gwyn A. Williams, When Was Wales? A History of the Welsh (Penguin, 1985), p. 296).
  25. ^ "University of Manitoba – University Governance – Honorary Degree Recipients". umanitoba.ca. Archived from the original on 2 November 2019. Retrieved 25 November 2019.
  26. ^ "Honorary Graduates of the University of Edinburgh". Scripts.sasg.ed.ac.uk. 19 July 2013. Archived from the original on 14 July 2015. Retrieved 8 April 2016.
  27. ^ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 5 May 2016. Retrieved 14 July 2015.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  28. ^ "Kilmuir, Earl of (UK, 1962 – 1967)". www.cracroftspeerage.co.uk. Archived from the original on 30 June 2022. Retrieved 20 January 2022.
  29. IMDb.com. Archived from the original
    on 7 January 2016. Retrieved 20 May 2008.
  30. ^ Karen Fricker, "Plague Over England" (review), Variety, 24 February 2009.
  31. ^ "HOME -". Archived from the original on 9 November 2011. Retrieved 1 June 2011.

Bibliography

External links

Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by Member of Parliament for Liverpool West Derby
19351954
Succeeded by
Legal offices
Preceded by
Solicitor-General for England

1942–1945
Succeeded by
Walter Monckton
Preceded by
Attorney-General for England

1945
Succeeded by
Hartley Shawcross
Political offices
Preceded by
Chuter Ede
Home Secretary

1951–1954
Succeeded by
Gwilym Lloyd George
Preceded by Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain
1954–1962
Succeeded by
Academic offices
Preceded by Rector of the University of St Andrews
1955–1958
Succeeded by
Peerage of the United Kingdom
New creation
Earl of Kilmuir

1962–1967
Extinct
Viscount Kilmuir

1954–1967