The Viscount Maugham | |
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| Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain | |
| In office 9 March 1938 –3 September 1939 | |
| Alma mater | Trinity Hall, Cambridge |
Frederic Herbert Maugham, 1st Viscount Maugham, PC (20 October 1866 – 23 March 1958) was a British barrister and judge who was Lord Chancellor from March 1938 until September 1939.
Born in Paris, Maugham was the second son of Robert Ormond Maugham, a solicitor, by his wife, Edith, daughter of Major Charles Snell. The author W. Somerset Maugham was his younger brother. His grandfather, Robert Maugham, was one of the founders of the Law Society. He was educated at Dover College and at Trinity Hall, Cambridge. [3] He rowed for the winning Cambridge crew in the 1888 Boat Race and was also in the winning Trinity Hall Boat Club coxless four which won the Stewards' Challenge Cup at Henley Royal Regatta that year. [4] He was in the winning Cambridge crew in the Boat Race again in 1889. He also became President of the Cambridge Union Society in Lent Term 1889. [3]
Maugham was called to the bar by Lincoln's Inn in 1890, and embarked upon a legal career, becoming a King's Counsel in 1913. In 1922, he briefly considered entering politics as a Conservative Member of Parliament but could not find a seat. He was a Judge of the High Court of Justice (Chancery Division) from 1928 to 1934 and a Lord Justice of Appeal from 1934 to 1935. He was knighted in 1928 and sworn of the Privy Council in 1934. The following year he became a Lord of Appeal in Ordinary, was created a life peer on 7 October 1935 and entered the House of Lords as Baron Maugham, of Hartfield in the County of Sussex . [5] Three years later he was offered the position of Lord Chancellor by Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain. Such was Maugham's lack of political experience that Chamberlain and he had never met before. He was offered the role because there were very few obvious available choices amongst the ranks of parliamentary supporters of the National Government to replace the ailing Lord Hailsham—for the obvious successor, Sir Thomas Inskip, could not be moved from the position of Minister for Coordination of Defence.
As Maugham was already 71 years old it was widely expected that he would prove to be a mere stop-gap appointment, to be succeeded by Inskip as soon as it was possible for the latter to leave Defence. However, by the time this occurred in early 1939, Chamberlain was sufficiently impressed with Maugham's work to offer to retain him, whilst allowing Inskip the opportunity to defer choosing between becoming Lord Chancellor or remaining in the House of Commons with the possibility of becoming prime minister, a choice that Hailsham had always regretted. Chamberlain intended to make a change at the next general election, which was expected to take place that year.
However, war intervened and Chamberlain carried out a full-scale reconstruction of his government. As part of this Maugham was allowed to retire, to be finally succeeded by Inskip, who was ennobled as Viscount Caldecote. Maugham took the retirement honour, of being created Viscount Maugham, of Hartfield in the County of Sussex on 22 September 1939, which, unlike his barony, was hereditary. [6] He again served as a Lord of Appeal in Ordinary until 1941.
Maugham married Helen Mary, daughter of Sir Robert Romer, in 1896. [7]
They had four children:
Lady Maugham died in October 1950, aged 78. Lord Maugham survived her by seven years, dying in March 1958, aged 91. He is buried in the grounds of the parish church in Hartfield, East Sussex, alongside his wife and son.
Quintin McGarel Hogg, Baron Hailsham of St Marylebone, known as the 2nd Viscount Hailsham between 1950 and 1963, at which point he disclaimed his hereditary peerage, was a British barrister and Conservative Party politician.
Earl of Winchilsea is a title in the Peerage of England. It has been held by the Finch-Hatton family of Kent, and united with the title of Earl of Nottingham under a single holder since 1729.
Douglas McGarel Hogg, 1st Viscount Hailsham, was a British lawyer and Conservative politician who twice served as Lord Chancellor, in addition to a number of other Cabinet positions. Mooted as a possible successor to Stanley Baldwin as party leader for a time in the very early 1930s, he was widely considered to be one of the leading Conservative politicians of his generation.
William Shepherd Morrison, 1st Viscount Dunrossil,, was a British politician. He was a long-serving cabinet minister before serving as Speaker of the House of Commons from 1951 to 1959. He was then appointed as the 14th Governor-General of Australia, in office from 1960 until his death in 1961.
Viscount Hailsham, of Hailsham in the County of Sussex, is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created in 1929 for the lawyer and Conservative politician Douglas Hogg, 1st Baron Hailsham, who twice served as Lord High Chancellor of the Great Britain. He had already been created Baron Hailsham, of Hailsham in the County of Sussex, in 1928, also in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. Hogg was the son of the merchant and philanthropist Quintin Hogg, seventh son of Sir James Hogg, 1st Baronet, whose eldest son James McGarel-Hogg, 2nd Baronet was created Baron Magheramorne in the Peerage of the United Kingdom in 1887.
Viscount Caldecote, of Bristol in the County of Gloucester, is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created in 1939 for the lawyer and politician Sir Thomas Inskip so that he could sit in the House of Lords and serve as Lord Chancellor. As of 2010 the title is held by his grandson, the third Viscount, who succeeded his father in 1999.
Hartfield is a village and civil parish in the Wealden district of East Sussex, England. The parish also includes the settlements of Colemans Hatch, Hammerwood and Holtye, all lying on the northern edge of Ashdown Forest.
Thomas Walker Hobart Inskip, 1st Viscount Caldecote, was a British politician who served in many legal posts, culminating in serving as Lord Chancellor from 1939 until 1940. Despite legal posts dominating his career for all but four years, he is most prominently remembered for serving as Minister for Coordination of Defence from 1936 until 1939.
The National Government of 1937–1939 was formed by Neville Chamberlain on his appointment as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom by King George VI. He succeeded Stanley Baldwin, who announced his resignation following the coronation of the King and Queen in May 1937.
Stanley Baldwin of the Conservative Party formed the second Baldwin ministry upon his reappointment as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom by King George V after the 1924 general election. His second ministry ended following the so-called "Flapper Election" of May 1929.
Charles Robert Spencer, 6th Earl Spencer,, styled The Honourable Charles Spencer until 1905 and known as Viscount Althorp between 1905 and 1910, was a British courtier and Liberal politician from the Spencer family. An MP from 1880 to 1895 and again from 1900 to 1905, he served as Vice-Chamberlain of the Household from 1892 to 1895. Raised to peerage as Viscount Althorp in 1905, he was Lord Chamberlain from 1905 to 1912 in the Liberal administrations headed by Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman and H. H. Asquith. In 1910, he succeeded his half-brother as Earl Spencer. He was married to Margaret Baring, a member of the Baring family.
Robert Cecil Romer Maugham, 2nd Viscount Maugham, known as Robin Maugham, was a British author.
Stanley Owen Buckmaster, 1st Viscount Buckmaster, was a British lawyer and Liberal Party politician. He was a Member of Parliament (MP) for most of the years from 1906 to 1915, when he was elevated to the peerage and served as Lord Chancellor under H. H. Asquith from 1915 to 1916.
Claud Schuster, 1st Baron Schuster,, was a British barrister and civil servant noted for his long tenure as Permanent Secretary to the Lord Chancellor's Office. Born to a Mancunian business family, Schuster was educated at St. George's School, Ascot and Winchester College before matriculating at New College, Oxford in 1888 to read history. After graduation, he joined the Inner Temple with the aim of becoming a barrister, and was called to the Bar in 1895. Practising in Liverpool, Schuster was not noted as a particularly successful barrister, and he joined Her Majesty's Civil Service in 1899 as secretary to the Chief Commissioner of the Local Government Act Commission.
Viscount Maugham, of Hartfield in the County of Sussex, was a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created on 22 September 1939 for the former Lord Chancellor, Frederic Maugham, Baron Maugham. He had already been created a life peer under the Appellate Jurisdiction Act 1876 as Baron Maugham, of Hartfield in the County of Sussex, on 7 October 1935. This title was also in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. On Lord Maugham's death in 1958 the life barony became extinct while he was succeeded in the viscountcy by his only son, the second Viscount. He was an author known as Robin Maugham. He never married and on his death in 1981 the viscountcy became extinct.
Mark Lemon Romer, Baron Romer, PC was a British barrister and judge.
General Sir Cecil Francis Romer, was a British Army general who reached high command during the 1920s.
Sir Robert Romer was a British judge. He was a High Court judge (1890–1899), and a Lord Justice of Appeal (1899–1906) when he was known as Lord Justice Romer.
Sir Charles Robert Ritchie Romer, was a British judge who served as Lord Justice of Appeal between 1951 and 1960.
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