Jonathan Philip Chadwick Sumption,
OBEThe Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by King George V. The Order includes five classes in civil and military divisions...
,
QCQueen'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". Membership exists in various Commonwealth countries around the world and it is a status, conferred by the Crown,...
(born 9 December 1948) is an eminent UK
barristerA barrister is a lawyer found in many common law jurisdictions that employ a split profession in relation to legal representation. In split professions, the other types of lawyers are mainly solicitors...
and medieval
historianAn historian is an individual who studies and writes about history, 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 events in time...
.
He is famous for his appearance in the
Hutton InquiryThe Hutton Inquiry was a British judicial inquiry chaired by Lord Hutton, appointed by the United Kingdom Labour government with the terms of reference "...urgently to conduct an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the death of Dr David Kelly"...
on the UK government's behalf , for his part in the Three Rivers case and his representation of former Cabinet minister
Stephen ByersStephen John Byers is a British Labour politician, who has been the Member of Parliament for Tyneside North since 1992 and has served in the Cabinet as Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Secretary of State for Trade and Industry and Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the...
and the UK Department for Transport in the
RailtrackRailtrack was a group of companies that owned the track, signalling, tunnels, bridges, level crossings and all but a handful of the stations of the British railway system from its formation in April 1994 until 2002...
private shareholders' action against the British Government in 2005.
As an historian his works include a substantial chronological history of the
Hundred Years' WarThe Hundred Years' War was a prolonged conflict lasting from 1337 to 1453 between two royal houses for the French throne, which was vacant with the extinction of the senior Capetian line of French kings. The two primary contenders were the House of Valois and the House of Plantagenet, also known...
, so far in three volumes.
Sumption was educated at
Eton CollegeEton College, often referred to simply as Eton, is a British independent boarding school for boys aged approx. 13 to 19. It was founded in 1440 by King Henry VI as "The King's College of Our Lady of Eton besides Wyndsor"....
and
Magdalen College, OxfordMagdalen College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. As of 2006 the college had an estimated financial endowment of £153 million....
.
Jonathan Philip Chadwick Sumption,
OBEThe Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by King George V. The Order includes five classes in civil and military divisions...
,
QCQueen'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". Membership exists in various Commonwealth countries around the world and it is a status, conferred by the Crown,...
(born 9 December 1948) is an eminent UK
barristerA barrister is a lawyer found in many common law jurisdictions that employ a split profession in relation to legal representation. In split professions, the other types of lawyers are mainly solicitors...
and medieval
historianAn historian is an individual who studies and writes about history, 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 events in time...
.
He is famous for his appearance in the
Hutton InquiryThe Hutton Inquiry was a British judicial inquiry chaired by Lord Hutton, appointed by the United Kingdom Labour government with the terms of reference "...urgently to conduct an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the death of Dr David Kelly"...
on the UK government's behalf , for his part in the Three Rivers case and his representation of former Cabinet minister
Stephen ByersStephen John Byers is a British Labour politician, who has been the Member of Parliament for Tyneside North since 1992 and has served in the Cabinet as Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Secretary of State for Trade and Industry and Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the...
and the UK Department for Transport in the
RailtrackRailtrack was a group of companies that owned the track, signalling, tunnels, bridges, level crossings and all but a handful of the stations of the British railway system from its formation in April 1994 until 2002...
private shareholders' action against the British Government in 2005.
As an historian his works include a substantial chronological history of the
Hundred Years' WarThe Hundred Years' War was a prolonged conflict lasting from 1337 to 1453 between two royal houses for the French throne, which was vacant with the extinction of the senior Capetian line of French kings. The two primary contenders were the House of Valois and the House of Plantagenet, also known...
, so far in three volumes.
Education
Sumption was educated at
Eton CollegeEton College, often referred to simply as Eton, is a British independent boarding school for boys aged approx. 13 to 19. It was founded in 1440 by King Henry VI as "The King's College of Our Lady of Eton besides Wyndsor"....
and
Magdalen College, OxfordMagdalen College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. As of 2006 the college had an estimated financial endowment of £153 million....
. He graduated from Oxford University in 1970, receiving a
B.A.Bachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences or both....
degreeA degree is any of a wide range of status levels conferred by institutions of higher education, such as universities, normally as the result of successfully completing a program of study.- History :...
in
HistoryHistory is the study of the human past, with special attention to the written record. Scholars who write about history are called historians. It is a field of research which uses a narrative to examine and analyse the sequence of events, and it often attempts to investigate objectively the patterns...
with first class honours.
Early career
He worked in History as a Fellow of
Magdalen CollegeMagdalen College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. As of 2006 the college had an estimated financial endowment of £153 million....
, before leaving to pursue law. He was called to the bar at
Inner TempleThe Honourable Society of the Inner Temple is one of the four Inns of Court around the Royal Courts of Justice in London which may call members to the Bar and so entitle them to practise as barristers...
in 1975 and has since pursued a successful legal practice in commercial law. In the late 1970s Sumption wrote regularly for the
Sunday TelegraphThe Sunday Telegraph is a British broadsheet newspaper, founded in 1961. It is the sister paper of The Daily Telegraph, but is run separately, with a different editorial staff....
.
Later career
He became a
Queen's CounselQueen'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". Membership exists in various Commonwealth countries around the world and it is a status, conferred by the Crown,...
in 1986, and a
BencherA bencher or Master of the Bench is a senior member of an Inn of Court in England and Wales. Benchers hold office for life once elected. A bencher can be elected while still a barrister , in recognition of the contribution that the barrister has made to the life of the Inn or to the law...
at
Inner TempleThe Honourable Society of the Inner Temple is one of the four Inns of Court around the Royal Courts of Justice in London which may call members to the Bar and so entitle them to practise as barristers...
in 1991. He acted in the landmark
Three Rivers DC v Bank of England case involving the collapse of the
Bank of Credit and Commerce InternationalThe Bank of Credit and Commerce International was a major international bank founded in 1972 by Agha Hasan Abedi, a Pakistani financier. The Bank was registered in Luxembourg...
. He is a deputy
High CourtThe High Court of Justice is, together with the Crown Court and the Court of Appeal, one of the Senior Courts of England and Wales...
judge in the Chancery Division, and a judge of the Jersey and Guernsey Court of Appeal.
He is a member of the
Judicial Appointments CommissionThe Judicial Appointments Commission is responsible for selecting judges in England and Wales. It is a non-departmental public body which was created on 3 April 2006 as part of the reforms following the Constitutional Reform Act 2005...
, as a representative of the legal profession, and is also a Governor of the
Royal Academy of MusicThe Royal Academy of Music in London, England, is a conservatoire, Britain's oldest degree-granting music school and a constituent college of the University of London since 1999. The Academy was founded by Lord Burghersh in 1822 with the help and ideas of the French harpist and composer Nicolas...
He is joint head of
Brick Court ChambersBrick Court Chambers is a chamber of barristers in London.Currently comprising 68 full-time members, Brick Court Chambers boasts well-known silks Sir Sydney Kentridge QC, a former Acting Justice of the Constitutional Court of South Africa and Jonathan Sumption QC.In 2008, Brick Court Chamber was...
(website),the UK's largest set by revenue
[The Lawyer.com ~UK 100 Annual Report, 24 May 2008].
On 30 November 2007 he was successful, acting as a litigant in person before Mr Justice Collins, in a judicial review application in the Administrative Court concerning development near his home in Greenwich . N.B. This reference needs correction.
Supreme Court of the United Kingdom
On 9 February 2009, The Guardian newspaper reported that it understood that Sumption has applied to be appointed as a Justice of the
Supreme Court of the United KingdomThe Supreme Court of the United Kingdom is the supreme court in all matters under English law, Welsh law and Northern Irish law...
.
In October 2009, the Supreme Court will take over all the powers and functions of the Law Lords, more properly known as the Appellate Committee of the House of Lords, the highest court in the UK in civil matters and in England, Wales and Northern Ireland in criminal appeals.
In the history of the Appellate Committee, there have been only four appointments of men straight from the Bar, without any intervening full-time judicial experience. Two were Scots lawyers:
Lord MacmillanHugh Pattison Macmillan, Baron Macmillan GCVO PC was a Scottish judge.The son of the Revd Hugh Macmillan, he was educated at Collegiate School, Greenock, at the University of Edinburgh and the University of Glasgow...
in 1930 and
Lord ReidJames Scott Cumberland Reid, Baron Reid, CH, KC was a Scottish Tory politician and judge. His reputation is as one of the most outstanding judges of the 20th century....
in 1948; the others were
Lord CarsonEdward Henry Carson, Baron Carson PC, Pc , Kt., QC , often known as Sir Edward Carson or Lord Carson, was an Irish and British barrister, judge and politician...
(1921) and
Lord RadcliffeCyril John Radcliffe, 1st Viscount Radcliffe GBE, PC was a British lawyer and law lord most famous for his partitioning of the British Imperial territory of India.-Birth and early career:...
(1949).
Earnings
He has been described by the
Sydney Morning Herald as "one of the most expensive silks in Britain".
The GuardianThe Guardian is a British daily newspaper owned by the Guardian Media Group. Founded in 1821, it is unique among major British newspapers in being owned by a foundation .The Guardian Weekly, which circulates worldwide, provides a compact digest of four newspapers...
describes him as being a member of the million pound club, the elite group of barristers who earn over a million pounds year . In a letter to the Guardian in 2001, he compared his "puny £1.6million a year" to the vastly larger amounts that comparable superstars in business, sports and entertainment are paid .
For a four week trial in the UK in 2005 he charged £800,000 plus VAT to represent the UK government in the largest
class actionIn law, a class action or a representative action is a form of lawsuit where a large group of people collectively bring a claim to court. This form of collective lawsuit originated in the United States and is still predominantly a U.S. phenomenon, at least the U.S. variant of it...
in the UK, brought by 49,500 private shareholders of the collapsed national railway infrastructure company
RailtrackRailtrack was a group of companies that owned the track, signalling, tunnels, bridges, level crossings and all but a handful of the stations of the British railway system from its formation in April 1994 until 2002...
. This was probably the case with the highest profile of the year in the UK, and the government had a great deal, in money and reputation, at stake. The case examined some of the actions of the government, especially of former transport secretary
Stephen ByersStephen John Byers is a British Labour politician, who has been the Member of Parliament for Tyneside North since 1992 and has served in the Cabinet as Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Secretary of State for Trade and Industry and Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the...
MP. Byers became the only former Cabinet Minister to be cross-examined in the
High CourtThe High Court of Justice is, together with the Crown Court and the Court of Appeal, one of the Senior Courts of England and Wales...
in relation to his actions in modern times. The UK Government won the case, even if many commentators regarded the shareholders as having won the moral argument.
Reputation as a historian
His narrative history of
The Hundred Years War between England and France (so far 3 volumes, 1991-2009) has been widely praised as 'a masterpiece ... earning a place alongside Sir
Steven RuncimanSir James Cochran Stevenson Runciman CH —known as Steven Runciman — was a British historian known for his work on the Middle Ages. Arguably, his best known work is his three volume A History of the Crusades .-Life:Born in Northumberland, both of his parents were Members of Parliament for the...
's
History of the Crusades according to Frederic RaphaelFrederic Michael Raphael is an American-born, British-educated screenwriter, and also a prolific novelist and journalist.-Biography:...
, that 'deploys an enormous variety of documentary material ... and interprets it with imaginative and intelligent sympathy' and is 'elegantly written' (Rosamond McKitterick, Evening Standard
); for Allan MassieAllan Massie is a well-known Scottish journalist and novelist.-Early life:Born in 1938 in Singapore, where his father was a rubber planter for Sime Darby, Massie spent his childhood in Aberdeenshire...
it is 'An enterprise on a truly Victorian scale ... What is most impressive about this work, apart from the author's mastery of his material and his deployment of it, is his political intelligence'.
Monographs
Pilgrimage: An Image of Medieval Religion
(1975) ISBN 0-571-10339-1
The Albigensian Crusade
(1978) ISBN 0-571-11064-9
Equality
(1979, with Keith JosephKeith Sinjohn Joseph, Baron Joseph, Bt., CH, PC was a British barrister, politician, and Conservative Cabinet Minister under three different Ministries. He is widely regarded as the "power behind the throne" in the creation of what came to be known as "Thatcherism"...
) ISBN 0-7195-3651-0
The Hundred Years War I: Trial by Battle
(1991) ISBN 0-571-13895-0
The Hundred Years War II: Trial by Fire
(1999) ISBN 0-571-13896-9
The Age of Pilgrimage: The Medieval Journey to God
(2003) ISBN 1-58768-025-4
The Hundred Years War III: Divided Houses (2009) ISBN 0-571-13897-7
Articles
Review of
External links