Edward Shortt
Encyclopedia
Edward Shortt PC KC (10 March 1862 – 10 November 1935) was a British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 lawyer and Liberal Party
Liberal Party (UK)
The Liberal Party was one of the two major political parties of the United Kingdom during the 19th and early 20th centuries. It was a third party of negligible importance throughout the latter half of the 20th Century, before merging with the Social Democratic Party in 1988 to form the present day...

 politician. He served as a member of David Lloyd George
David Lloyd George
David Lloyd George, 1st Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor OM, PC was a British Liberal politician and statesman...

's cabinet, notably as Home Secretary
Home Secretary
The Secretary of State for the Home Department, commonly known as the Home Secretary, is the minister in charge of the Home Office of the United Kingdom, and one of the country's four Great Offices of State...

 from 1919 to 1922.

Background and education

The son of a Newcastle upon Tyne
Newcastle upon Tyne
Newcastle upon Tyne is a city and metropolitan borough of Tyne and Wear, in North East England. Historically a part of Northumberland, it is situated on the north bank of the River Tyne...

 Church of England
Church of England
The Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The church considers itself within the tradition of Western Christianity and dates its formal establishment principally to the mission to England by St...

 vicar, Shortt was educated at Durham School
Durham School
Durham School, headmaster Martin George , is an independent British day and boarding school for boys and girls in Durham....

, followed by the University of Durham, where he read Classics
Classics
Classics is the branch of the Humanities comprising the languages, literature, philosophy, history, art, archaeology and other culture of the ancient Mediterranean world ; especially Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome during Classical Antiquity Classics (sometimes encompassing Classical Studies or...

.

Legal career

He was called to the Bar
Bar (law)
Bar in a legal context has three possible meanings: the division of a courtroom between its working and public areas; the process of qualifying to practice law; and the legal profession.-Courtroom division:...

 at the Middle Temple
Middle Temple
The Honourable Society of the Middle Temple, commonly known as Middle Temple, is one of the four Inns of Court exclusively entitled to call their members to the English Bar as barristers; the others being the Inner Temple, Gray's Inn and Lincoln's Inn...

 in 1890 and practised on the North Eastern Circuit. He served as Recorder
Recorder (judge)
A Recorder is a judicial officer in England and Wales. It now refers to two quite different appointments. The ancient Recorderships of England and Wales now form part of a system of Honorary Recorderships which are filled by the most senior full-time circuit judges...

 (part-time judge) of Sunderland from 1907 to 1918, and was made a King's Counsel
Queen's Counsel
Queen's Counsel , known as King's Counsel during the reign of a male sovereign, are lawyers appointed by letters patent to be one of Her [or His] Majesty's Counsel learned in the law...

 in 1910. He was never a particularly successful barrister
Barrister
A barrister is a member of one of the two classes of lawyer found in many common law jurisdictions with split legal professions. Barristers specialise in courtroom advocacy, drafting legal pleadings and giving expert legal opinions...

, but was popular, clear and lucid.

Political career

Shortt became active in politics for the Liberal Party
Liberal Party (UK)
The Liberal Party was one of the two major political parties of the United Kingdom during the 19th and early 20th centuries. It was a third party of negligible importance throughout the latter half of the 20th Century, before merging with the Social Democratic Party in 1988 to form the present day...

. In 1908, Shortt was an unsuccessful candidate for Newcastle upon Tyne in a by-election
By-election
A by-election is an election held to fill a political office that has become vacant between regularly scheduled elections....

, losing a seat previously held by the party when the Social Democratic Federation
Social Democratic Federation
The Social Democratic Federation was established as Britain's first organised socialist political party by H. M. Hyndman, and had its first meeting on June 7, 1881. Those joining the SDF included William Morris, George Lansbury and Eleanor Marx. However, Friedrich Engels, Karl Marx's long-term...

 put up a candidate against him. However, in the January 1910 election he was elected, and remained an MP until 1922, trasferring in 1918 to the new Newcastle upon Tyne West
Newcastle upon Tyne West (UK Parliament constituency)
Newcastle upon Tyne West was a parliamentary constituency in the city of Newcastle upon Tyne which returned one Member of Parliament to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom....

 constituency. Within the Liberal Party, Shortt allied with David Lloyd George
David Lloyd George
David Lloyd George, 1st Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor OM, PC was a British Liberal politician and statesman...

 in the party split which occurred between him and H. H. Asquith
H. H. Asquith
Herbert Henry Asquith, 1st Earl of Oxford and Asquith, KG, PC, KC served as the Liberal Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1908 to 1916...

. When Lloyd George came to power in 1916, Shortt was soon appointed to the government.

Shortt was not a very active MP, but his appointment to chair a Select Committee to review the operation of the Military Service Acts in 1917 brought him to the attention of Lloyd George. In May 1918, Lloyd George appointed him as Chief Secretary for Ireland
Chief Secretary for Ireland
The Chief Secretary for Ireland was a key political office in the British administration in Ireland. Nominally subordinate to the Lord Lieutenant, from the late 18th century until the end of British rule he was effectively the government minister with responsibility for governing Ireland; usually...

, at a pivotal point as the First World War and when Irish Republicanism
Irish Republicanism
Irish republicanism is an ideology based on the belief that all of Ireland should be an independent republic.In 1801, under the Act of Union, the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Kingdom of Ireland merged to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland...

 was on the increase. The government had decided to introduce conscription
Conscription
Conscription is the compulsory enlistment of people in some sort of national service, most often military service. Conscription dates back to antiquity and continues in some countries to the present day under various names...

 in Ireland to provide more soldiers for the Western Front
Western Front (World War I)
Following the outbreak of World War I in 1914, the German Army opened the Western Front by first invading Luxembourg and Belgium, then gaining military control of important industrial regions in France. The tide of the advance was dramatically turned with the Battle of the Marne...

, linked to support for Irish home rule, but still found that opposition to the British increased. Shortt gave his support to an unusual plan to encourage Irish soldiers to join the French army, while persuading the Roman Catholic hierarchy in Ireland to support conscription. However, both parts of the plan collapsed due to infighting within the government and the military establishment. Conscription was never enforced in Ireland.

Once the war was over, Shortt was promoted to Home Secretary
Home Secretary
The Secretary of State for the Home Department, commonly known as the Home Secretary, is the minister in charge of the Home Office of the United Kingdom, and one of the country's four Great Offices of State...

 in January 1919, during the middle of a police strike. He helped to solve the strike to everyone's satisfaction and earned the support of the police. He had to deal with rising crime caused by large numbers of unemployed soldiers, some with mental illness. He brought in a bill to license firearm
Firearm
A firearm is a weapon that launches one, or many, projectile at high velocity through confined burning of a propellant. This subsonic burning process is technically known as deflagration, as opposed to supersonic combustion known as a detonation. In older firearms, the propellant was typically...

s, of which there were many which had been smuggled back as war trophies. Shortt also reprieved Ronald True
Ronald True
Ronald True, registered at birth as Angus Ronald True, was an English murderer. He was found guilty of the murder of a prostitute in 1922 but reprieved by the Home Secretary on the grounds of insanity and confined for life in Broadmoor Hospital...

, who had been condemned to death for murder, after finding the issue of his sanity in doubt. Shortt was not well respected in Parliament, where he had a reputation for laziness and for appointing fellow barristers from the North East to important posts.

When Lloyd George's Coalition government fell in October 1922, Shortt retired from politics and stood down from Parliament. In November 1929, Shortt was appointed as second President of the British Board of Film Censors
British Board of Film Classification
The British Board of Film Classification , originally British Board of Film Censors, is a non-governmental organisation, funded by the film industry and responsible for the national classification of films within the United Kingdom...

 succeeding T.P. O'Connor. This was an odd appointment as Shortt had no real interest and actively disliked sound films. The Board had been set up by the film industry and had no statutory role (local councils being technically responsible for judging who could see a film) but in practice its rulings were always obeyed.

Shortt followed previous policy of a highly restrictive licensing. In the Board's report for 1931, he outlined his concern about the increasing number of films dealing with sexual topics, and promised further restrictions. He banned 120 films in five years and in 1932 ordered cuts to 382, a record number; one of the films banned was Red-Headed Woman
Red-Headed Woman
Red-Headed Woman is a 1932 Pre-Code comedy film, produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, based on a novel by Katherine Brush, and with a screenplay by Anita Loos. It was directed by Jack Conway, and stars Jean Harlow as a woman who uses sex to advance her social position...

, starring Jean Harlow
Jean Harlow
Jean Harlow was an American film actress and sex symbol of the 1930s. Known as the "Blonde Bombshell" and the "Platinum Blonde" , Harlow was ranked as one of the greatest movie stars of all time by the American Film Institute...

. Shortt died in post in 1935.

Family

Shortt married Isabella Stewart Scott, who had been born in Chile
Chile
Chile ,officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...

of British parents, in 1890. They had one son, who was killed in action in 1917, and three daughters. He died in November 1935, aged 73.

External links

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