David Maxwell Fyfe, 1st Earl of Kilmuir
Sir Walter Monckton | |
---|---|
Personal details | |
Born | 29 May 1900 UK |
Nationality | British |
Political party | Conservative |
Spouse | Sylvia Harrison (m. 1925) |
Children | 3 |
Alma mater | Balliol College, Oxford |
David Patrick Maxwell Fyfe, 1st Earl of Kilmuir,
One of the
Early life
Born in
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
Into government and on to Nuremberg
In March 1942, Sir
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
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
Return to government
Home Secretary
Shortly before the
In 1952, the
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”
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
This was ironic, says
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
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
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]
- King's Counsel (KC) (1934)
- Knighthood (Kt) (1942)
- Privy Councillor(PC) (1945)
- Viscount Kilmuir(1954)
- Earl of Kilmuir(1962)
- Knight Grand Cross in the Royal Victorian Order (GCVO) (1953);
- Honorary degrees including:
- University of Oxford;
- LL.D) 1954.[25]
- LL.D) 1955.[26]
- University of Wales;
- LL.D) 16 September 1960.[27]
- Visitor of St Antony's College, Oxford (1953); and
- Rector of the University of St Andrews (1956).
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Portrayal in drama
David Maxwell Fyfe has been portrayed by the following actors in film, television and theatre productions;[29]
- Iain Cuthbertson in the 1991 British/French film Let Him Have It
- Nuremberg
- Julian Wadham in the 2006 British television docudrama Nuremberg: Nazis on Trial
- Consenting Adults
- Plague Over England (London, 2009)[30]
- There is also a film being made about him called Under an English Heaven by his grandson Tom Blackmore.[31]
- Zdzisław Mrożewski in the Polish film Epilog norymberski
References
- ^ Cracroft's Peerage.
- ^ 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.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t Dutton (2004).
- ^ Jago 2015, p.244
- ^ "No. 34025". The London Gazette. 20 February 1934. p. 1152.
- ^ The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography more precisely puts it as the Army Officers' Emergency Reserve.
- ^ Richard Overy, Interrogations: The Nazi Elite in Allied Hands, 1945 (New York: Viking, 2001), p. 11.
- ^ Overy, p. 6.
- ^ Tusa & Tusa (1983), p. 136.
- ^ Jago 2015, p.244
- ^ Political Adventure, The Memoirs of the Earl of Kilmuir (1964).
- ^ Andrew (2009), pp. 322–323.
- ^ Andrew (2009), pp. 323–324.
- ^ Jenkins, Simon, "Make mine a glass of cannabis wine, thank you", The Guardian (Manchester), 19 October 2018.
- ^ a b Stewart, Graham "The Accidental Legacy of a Homophobic Humanitarian", The Times (London), 2 October 2000.
- ^ a b Geraldine Bedell, "Coming out of the dark ages" Archived 31 August 2013 at the Wayback Machine, The Observer, London, 24 June 2007.
- ISBN 978-1-4088-0083-6.
- ^ "Derek William Bentley "A victim of British justice?"". Archived from the original on 4 October 2006. Retrieved 2006-10-04.
- ^ Jago 2015, p.244
- ^ "No. 40304". The London Gazette. 19 October 1954. p. 5913.
- ^ "No. 42740". The London Gazette (Supplement). 24 July 1962. p. 5909.
- ^ Alderman (1992).
- ^ Thorpe 1989, p. 349.
- ^ 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).
- ^ "University of Manitoba – University Governance – Honorary Degree Recipients". umanitoba.ca. Archived from the original on 2 November 2019. Retrieved 25 November 2019.
- ^ "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.
- ^ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 5 May 2016. Retrieved 14 July 2015.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) - ^ "Kilmuir, Earl of (UK, 1962 – 1967)". www.cracroftspeerage.co.uk. Archived from the original on 30 June 2022. Retrieved 20 January 2022.
- IMDb.com. Archived from the originalon 7 January 2016. Retrieved 20 May 2008.
- ^ Karen Fricker, "Plague Over England" (review), Variety, 24 February 2009.
- ^ "HOME -". Archived from the original on 9 November 2011. Retrieved 1 June 2011.
Bibliography
- Obituaries:
- The Times, 28 January 1967
- The Guardian, 28 January 1967
- Alderman, K. (1992). "Harold Macmillan's 'Night of the long knives'". Contemporary Record. 6 (2): 243–265. .
- ISBN 978-0-141-02330-4.
- Dutton, D. J. (2004)"Fyfe, David Patrick Maxwell, Earl of Kilmuir (1900–1967)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, accessed 4 Aug 2007 (subscription or UK public library membershiprequired)
- Heuston, R. F. V. (1987). Lives of the Lord Chancellors, 1940–1970.
- Jago, Michael (2015). Rab Butler: The Best Prime Minister We Never Had?. Biteback Publishing. ISBN 978-1849549202.
- Lord Kilmuir (1964) Political Adventure
- ISBN 978-0-224-02828-8.
- Tusa, A. & Tusa, J. (1983) The Nuremberg Trial
External links
- Media related to David Maxwell Fyfe at Wikimedia Commons
- Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by David Maxwell Fyfe
- The Papers of Lord Kilmuir held at Churchill Archives Centre