Hartley William Shawcross, Baron Shawcross,
GBEThe Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...
,
PCHer Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council, usually known simply as the Privy Council, is a formal body of advisers to the Sovereign in the United Kingdom...
, KC (4 February 1902 – 10 July 2003) was a
BritishThe 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...
barristerA 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...
and
politicianA politician, political leader, or political figure is an individual who is involved in influencing public policy and decision making...
and the lead British prosecutor at the
Nuremberg War Crimes tribunalThe Nuremberg Trials were a series of military tribunals, held by the victorious Allied forces of World War II, most notable for the prosecution of prominent members of the political, military, and economic leadership of the defeated Nazi Germany....
.
Early life
Hartley William Shawcross was born to John and Hilda Shawcross in
GermanyGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, whilst his father was teaching
EnglishEnglish is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
at Giessen University. He was educated at
Dulwich CollegeDulwich College is an independent school for boys in Dulwich, southeast London, England. The college was founded in 1619 by Edward Alleyn, a successful Elizabethan actor, with the original purpose of educating 12 poor scholars as the foundation of "God's Gift". It currently has about 1,600 boys,...
, the
London School of EconomicsThe London School of Economics and Political Science is a public research university specialised in the social sciences located in London, United Kingdom, and a constituent college of the federal University of London...
and the
University of GenevaThe University of Geneva is a public research university located in Geneva, Switzerland.It was founded in 1559 by John Calvin, as a theological seminary and law school. It remained focused on theology until the 17th century, when it became a center for Enlightenment scholarship. In 1873, it...
and sat for the Bar at
Gray's InnThe Honourable Society of Gray's Inn, commonly known as Gray's Inn, is one of the four Inns of Court in London. To be called to the Bar and practise as a barrister in England and Wales, an individual must belong to one of these Inns...
, where he won first-class honours.
Career
He joined the Labour Party at a young age, and served as
Member of ParliamentA Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...
for
St HelensSt Helens was a county constituency in the county of Lancashire, England. It returned one Member of Parliament to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom....
,
LancashireLancashire is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in the North West of England. It takes its name from the city of Lancaster, and is sometimes known as the County of Lancaster. Although Lancaster is still considered to be the county town, Lancashire County Council is based in Preston...
from 1945 to 1958, holding the position of Attorney-General from 1945 to 1951. It was in 1946 when debating the repeal of anti-
UnionA trade union, trades union or labor union is an organization of workers that have banded together to achieve common goals such as better working conditions. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiates labour contracts with...
laws in the
House of CommonsThe House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which also comprises the Sovereign and the House of Lords . Both Commons and Lords meet in the Palace of Westminster. The Commons is a democratically elected body, consisting of 650 members , who are known as Members...
that Shawcross allegedly said "We are the masters now,", a phrase that came to haunt him.
As Attorney-General, he prosecuted
William JoyceWilliam Joyce , nicknamed Lord Haw-Haw, was an Irish-American fascist politician and Nazi propaganda broadcaster to the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He was hanged for treason by the British as a result of his wartime activities, even though he had renounced his British nationality...
("Lord Haw-Haw") and
John AmeryJohn Amery was a British fascist who proposed to the Wehrmacht the formation of a British volunteer force and made recruitment efforts and propaganda broadcasts for Nazi Germany...
for
treasonIn law, treason is the crime that covers some of the more extreme acts against one's sovereign or nation. Historically, treason also covered the murder of specific social superiors, such as the murder of a husband by his wife. Treason against the king was known as high treason and treason against a...
and also prosecuted
Klaus FuchsKlaus Emil Julius Fuchs was a German theoretical physicist and atomic spy who in 1950 was convicted of supplying information from the American, British and Canadian atomic bomb research to the USSR during and shortly after World War II...
and
Alan Nunn MayAlan Nunn May was an English physicist, and a confessed and convicted Soviet spy, who supplied secrets of British and United States atomic research to the Soviet Union during World War II.-Early years, education:...
, for giving atomic secrets to the
Soviet UnionThe Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
and
John George HaighJohn George Haigh , commonly known as the "Acid Bath Murderer" , was an English serial killer during the 1940s. He was convicted of the murders of six people, although he claimed to have killed nine...
, known as 'the acid bath murderer'. He was knighted in 1945 and named Chief Prosecutor for the United Kingdom at
NurembergNuremberg[p] is a city in the German state of Bavaria, in the administrative region of Middle Franconia. Situated on the Pegnitz river and the Rhine–Main–Danube Canal, it is located about north of Munich and is Franconia's largest city. The population is 505,664...
. From 1945 to 1949, he was Britain's principal
United NationsThe United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
delegate, though he was recalled in 1948 to lead for the government's interest at the
Lynskey tribunalThe Lynskey tribunal was a tribunal of inquiry into allegations of corruption among British government ministers and civil servants. The allegations raised public alarm and disgust in the economic climate of austerity that prevailed in contemporary Britain...
. In 1951, he briefly served as President of the Board of Trade until the Labour government's defeat in the election of that year. He ended his law career the same year, and was expected to become a Tory earning him the nickname "Sir Shortly Floorcross". Instead, he resigned from Parliament in 1958, saying he was tired of party politics. He was made one of Britain's first
life peerIn the United Kingdom, life peers are appointed members of the Peerage whose titles cannot be inherited. Nowadays life peerages, always of baronial rank, are created under the Life Peerages Act 1958 and entitle the holders to seats in the House of Lords, presuming they meet qualifications such as...
s on 14 February 1959 as
Baron Shawcross, of Friston in the County of Sussex, and sat in the
House of LordsThe House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster....
as a
cross-bencherA crossbencher is an independent or minor party member of some legislatures, such as the British House of Lords and Australian Senate. They take their name from the crossbenches, between and perpendicular to the government and opposition benches, where crossbenchers sit in the chamber; compare...
. Because of this change of loyalties away from Labour, his many business interests and, much later, his support for the
Social Democratic Party (UK)The Social Democratic Party was a political party in the United Kingdom that was created on 26 March 1981 and existed until 1988. It was founded by four senior Labour Party 'moderates', dubbed the 'Gang of Four': Roy Jenkins, David Owen, Bill Rodgers and Shirley Williams...
, the 'Floorcross' nickname in the end rang true.
In 1957, he was among a group of eminent British lawyers who founded
JUSTICEJUSTICE is a human rights and law reform organisation based in the United Kingdom. It is the British section of the International Commission of Jurists, the international human rights organisation of lawyers devoted to the legal protection of human rights worldwide...
, the
human rightsHuman rights are "commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being." Human rights are thus conceived as universal and egalitarian . These rights may exist as natural rights or as legal rights, in both national...
and law reform organisation and he became its first chairman - a position he held until 1972.
He was also instrumental in the foundation of the
University of SussexThe University of Sussex is an English public research university situated next to the East Sussex village of Falmer, within the city of Brighton and Hove. The University received its Royal Charter in August 1961....
and served as chancellor of the university from 1965 to 1985.
Defending Press Freedom
In 1961 he was appointed the chairman of the second
Royal Commission on the PressIn 1947 the National Union of Journalists argued for a Royal Commission to investigate the risk to freedom of expression caused by increasing concentration of ownership of the press and the potential influence of advertisers on editorial content...
. In 1967 he became one of the directors of
The TimesThe Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
responsible for ensuring its editorial independence. He resigned on being appointed chairman of the Press Council in 1974.
From 1974 to 1978 he was chairman of the Press Council and is described as "forthright in his condemnation both of journalists who committed excesses and of proprietors who profited from them" and as a "doughty defender of press freedom".
In October 1974 he poured scorn on a Labour Party pamphlet that recommended the application of "internal democracy" to editorial policy, saying "This means that... there would be some sort of committee consisting at the best of a mixture of van drivers, press operators, electricians and the rest, with no doubt a few journalists, but more probably composed of trade union officials, to deal with editorial policy."
Family
Lord Shawcross was married three times. His first wife Alberta Rosita Shyvers (m. 24 May 1924) suffered from
multiple sclerosisMultiple sclerosis is an inflammatory disease in which the fatty myelin sheaths around the axons of the brain and spinal cord are damaged, leading to demyelination and scarring as well as a broad spectrum of signs and symptoms...
and committed suicide on 30 December 1943. His second wife Joan Winifred Mather (m. 21 September 1944) died in a riding accident on the Sussex Downs on 26 January 1974. At the age of 95 he married Mrs. Susanne Monique Huiskamp on 18 April 1997 in
GibraltarGibraltar is a British overseas territory located on the southern end of the Iberian Peninsula at the entrance of the Mediterranean. A peninsula with an area of , it has a northern border with Andalusia, Spain. The Rock of Gibraltar is the major landmark of the region...
.
He had two sons, the
authorAn author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...
and
historianA historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the study of all history in time. If the individual is...
William ShawcrossWilliam Hartley Hume Shawcross, CVO is a British writer and commentator.-Career:Shawcross was educated at St. Aubyns Preparatory School, Rottingdean, Eton College and University College, Oxford. He attended St. Martin's Art School to study sculpture after leaving Oxford. He worked as a journalist...
, Hume Shawcross and a daughter, Dr Joanna Shawcross, by his second wife. He died at home at
CowbeechCowbeech is a small village and civil parish in the Wealden district of East Sussex, England. Its nearest town is Hailsham, which lies approximately south-west from the village....
,
East SussexEast Sussex is a county in South East England. It is bordered by the counties of Kent, Surrey and West Sussex, and to the south by the English Channel.-History:...
at the age of 101. He was also a distant relative of American
serial killerA serial killer, as typically defined, is an individual who has murdered three or more people over a period of more than a month, with down time between the murders, and whose motivation for killing is usually based on psychological gratification...
Arthur ShawcrossArthur John Shawcross was an American serial killer, also known as The Genesee River Killer in Rochester, New York...
Shawcross and the Nuremberg Trials
Shawcross's advocacy before the Nuremberg Trial was passionate. His most famous line was:
- "There comes a point when a man must refuse to answer to his leader if he is also to answer to his own conscience."
He avoided the crusading style of
AmericaThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
n,
SovietThe Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
and
FrenchThe French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
prosecutors. Shawcross's opening speech, which lasted two days, sought to undermine any belief that the Nuremberg Trials were victor's
justiceJustice is a concept of moral rightness based on ethics, rationality, law, natural law, religion, or equity, along with the punishment of the breach of said ethics; justice is the act of being just and/or fair.-Concept of justice:...
(an exacted
vengeanceRevenge is a harmful action against a person or group in response to a grievance, be it real or perceived. It is also called payback, retribution, retaliation or vengeance; it may be characterized, justly or unjustly, as a form of justice.-Function in society:Some societies believe that the...
against defeated foes). Instead, he focused on the
rule of lawThe rule of law, sometimes called supremacy of law, is a legal maxim that says that governmental decisions should be made by applying known principles or laws with minimal discretion in their application...
and he demonstrated that the laws that the defendants had broken, expressed in international treaties and agreements, were those to which pre-war
GermanyGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
had been a party. In his closing speech, he ridiculed any notion that any of the defendants could have remained ignorant of the thousands of Germans exterminated because they were old or mentally ill. He used the same argument for the millions of other people "annihilated in the gas chambers or by shooting" and he maintained that each of the 22 defendants was a party to "common murder in its most ruthless forms".
Thus Shawcross's advocacy was instrumental in obtaining convictions against the remaining
NaziNazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
leadership, on grounds which were perceived as fair and lawful.
Bodkin Adams case
During the committal hearing for the suspected
serial killerA serial killer, as typically defined, is an individual who has murdered three or more people over a period of more than a month, with down time between the murders, and whose motivation for killing is usually based on psychological gratification...
John Bodkin AdamsJohn Bodkin Adams was an Irish-born British general practitioner, convicted fraudster and suspected serial killer. Between the years 1946 and 1956, more than 160 of his patients died in suspicious circumstances. Of these, 132 left him money or items in their will. He was tried and acquitted for...
in February 1957, Shawcross was seen dining with the defendant's lover,
Roland GwynneLieutenant-Colonel Sir Roland Vaughan Gwynne, DSO, DL, JP was Mayor of Eastbourne, Sussex, from 1928 to 1931. He was also a patient and close friend of the suspected serial killer Dr John Bodkin Adams.-Childhood:...
, at the White Hart Hotel in
LewesLewes is the county town of East Sussex, England and historically of all of Sussex. It is a civil parish and is the centre of the Lewes local government district. The settlement has a history as a bridging point and as a market town, and today as a communications hub and tourist-oriented town...
. They were accompanied by
Lord Chief Justice GoddardRayner Goddard, Baron Goddard was Lord Chief Justice of England from 1946 to 1958 and known for his strict sentencing and conservative views. He was nicknamed the 'Tiger' and "Justice-in-a-jiffy" for his no-nonsense manner...
, who had already selected
Patrick DevlinPatrick Arthur Devlin, Baron Devlin, PC was a British lawyer, judge and jurist. He wrote a report on Britain's involvement in Nyasaland in 1959...
as judge for Adams' trial and then later phoned Devlin while the
juryA jury is a sworn body of people convened to render an impartial verdict officially submitted to them by a court, or to set a penalty or judgment. Modern juries tend to be found in courts to ascertain the guilt, or lack thereof, in a crime. In Anglophone jurisdictions, the verdict may be guilty,...
was considering its verdict, to recommend that Adams be given bail before a second trial for another count of murder. While driving home afterwards, Gwynne crashed his car. He hadn't been drinking. Adams was acquitted but was suspected by police of killing 163 of his patients.
Later, on 10 May 1957, Goddard heard a
contempt of courtContempt of court is a court order which, in the context of a court trial or hearing, declares a person or organization to have disobeyed or been disrespectful of the court's authority...
case against
NewsweekNewsweek is an American weekly news magazine published in New York City. It is distributed throughout the United States and internationally. It is the second-largest news weekly magazine in the U.S., having trailed Time in circulation and advertising revenue for most of its existence...
and W. H. Smith. On 1 April during Adams' trial, they had respectively published and distributed an issue of the magazine containing two paragraphs of material "highly
prejudicialPrejudice is making a judgment or assumption about someone or something before having enough knowledge to be able to do so with guaranteed accuracy, or "judging a book by its cover"...
to the accused", saying that Adams' victim count could be "as high as 400". Each company was fined £50. Goddard made no mention of his
conflict of interestA conflict of interest occurs when an individual or organization is involved in multiple interests, one of which could possibly corrupt the motivation for an act in the other....
.
Other cases
During a rent tribunal case he referred to certain workers as "six black niggers".
External links