The Earl of Kilmuir | |
|---|---|
 Fyfe in 1951 | |
| Lord Chancellor | |
| In office 18 October 1954 – 13 July 1962 | |
| Monarch | Elizabeth II |
| Prime Minister | |
| Preceded by | The Viscount Simonds |
| Succeeded by | The Lord Dilhorne |
| Home Secretary | |
| In office 27 October 1951 – 19 October 1954 | |
| Prime Minister | Winston Churchill |
| Preceded by | James Chuter Ede |
| Succeeded by | Gwilym Lloyd George |
| Attorney-General for England | |
| In office 25 May 1945 – 26 July 1945 | |
| Prime Minister | Winston Churchill |
| Preceded by | Sir Donald Somervell |
| Succeeded by | Hartley Shawcross |
| Solicitor-General for England | |
| In office 4 March 1942 – 25 May 1945 | |
| Prime Minister | Winston Churchill |
| Preceded by | Sir William Jowitt |
| Succeeded by | Walter Monckton |
| Personal details | |
| Born | David Patrick Maxwell Fyfe 29 May 1900 (1900-05-29) Edinburgh, Scotland |
| Died | 27 January 1967(1967-01-27) (aged 66) Withyham, England |
| Nationality | British |
| Party | Conservative |
| Spouse | Sylvia Harrison (m. 1925) |
| Children | 3 |
| Alma mater | Balliol College, Oxford |
David Patrick Maxwell Fyfe, 1st Earl of Kilmuir,GCVO, PC (29 May 1900 – 27 January 1967), known asSir David Maxwell Fyfe from 1942 to 1954 and asViscount Kilmuir from 1954 to 1962, was aBritish Conservative politician, lawyer and judge who combined a legal career with political ambitions that took him to the offices ofSolicitor General,Attorney General,Home Secretary andLord High Chancellor of Great Britain.
One of theprosecuting counsel at theNuremberg Trials, he subsequently played a role in drafting theEuropean Convention on Human Rights. As Home Secretary from 1951 to 1954 he greatly increased the number of prosecutions of homosexuals and declined to commuteDerek Bentley's death sentence for the murder of a police officer. His political ambitions were ultimately dashed inHarold Macmillan'scabinet reshuffle of July 1962.
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.[1]
Born inEdinburgh, the only son of William Thomson Fyfe, headmaster ofAberdeen Grammar School, by his second wife Isabella Campbell, daughter of David Campbell, ofDornoch,Sutherland,[2] he was educated atGeorge Watson's College andBalliol College, Oxford, where he achieved a third-class degree inGreats. Whilst at Oxford, he was a member of theStubbs Society. His academic education was paused during his service in theScots Guards in 1918–19, at the end of theWorld War I.[3] After graduation, he worked for theBritish Commonwealth Union as political secretary to SirPatrick HannonMP, studying law in his spare time. He enteredGray's Inn and wascalled to the bar in 1922. He became apupil ofGeorge Lynskey in Liverpool then joined his chambers to practise.[1] Maxwell Fyfe later wrote that his ambition was to be a silk (King's Counsel) in his thirties, a minister in his forties and at the top of the legal profession in his fifties.[4]
Not pausing before beginning his political career in earnest, he stood as a Conservative forWigan in1924, an unwinnable parliamentary seat. He cultivated the more winnableSpen Valley until1929 when the party resolved not to oppose sittingLiberalMember of Parliament (MP) SirJohn Simon while he was absent on theSimon Commission in India. Maxwell Fyfe was eventually elected toParliament inLiverpool West Derby in aby-election in July 1935.[1]
Meanwhile, Maxwell Fyfe's legal career had prospered. In 1934 he became King's Counsel.[5] He wasRecorder ofOldham from 1936 to 1942.[1]
Maxwell Fyfe, along withPatrick Spens,Derrick Gunston and others, backed theNational Government over theHoare–Laval Pact, and he supportedNeville Chamberlain over theMunich Agreement. However, after theGerman occupation of Czechoslovakia in March 1939, Maxwell Fyfe joined theTerritorial Army[6] and, at the outbreak ofWorld War II in September, he was deployed to theJudge Advocate-General's department with rank ofmajor. He was badly injured in anair raid in September 1940. In May 1941 Maxwell Fyfe became deputy toRab Butler's chairmanship of the Conservative Party Post War Problems Committee to draft policies for after the war. He took over as chairman from Butler between July 1943 and August 1944 while Butler was busy passing theEducation Act 1944 (seePolitical career of Rab Butler (1941–1951)).[1]
In March 1942, SirWinston Churchill, on the advice ofBrendan Bracken, appointed Maxwell FyfeSolicitor-General. At the same time he wasknighted and sworn of thePrivy Council. He applied himself to his work in the wartime coalition government with enormous industry and began some of the thinking and planning about how the leaders of theNazi regime in Germany might be brought to account after the war. As part of his duties, on 8 April 1945, he attended an Anglo-American discussion over the war crimes trial, at which, says the historianRichard Overy, "he presented the standard British argument forsummary execution."[7] Whether Maxwell Fyfe believed such executions were the best method of dealing with the Nazis may be doubted, in view of his later work at theNuremberg Trials; at the time, however, as a member of the government he had little choice but to follow the lead of the Prime Minister,Winston Churchill, who repeatedly urged that summary justice be visited upon the Nazi leaders.[8] When the war in Europe ended and the coalition was dissolved in May 1945, Maxwell Fyfe was brieflyAttorney-General in Churchill's caretaker government.[1]
TheLabour Party won a landslide victory in theUnited Kingdom general election of 1945 and SirHartley Shawcross became Attorney General and took responsibility as Britain's chief prosecutor in theNuremberg trials. Shawcross, to emphasise the non-partisan nature of the trials, appointed Maxwell Fyfe his deputy. Shawcross was largely committed to his political duties inWestminster 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 ofHermann Göring was one of the most noted in history.[1]
After Nuremberg, Maxwell Fyfe returned to Parliament toshadow theMinister of Labour while simultaneously pursuing a full, busy and prominent career at theBar, for example defending serial murdererJohn George Haigh in 1949. Reputedly, he would arrive at theHouse of Commons at around 5.00 pm, often stay throughout debates that lasted all night then, after a quick shave and breakfast, leave forcourt. He was assisted in his punishing schedule by his wifeSylvia, herself a Conservative Party worker.[1] In 1945–51 he earned an annual average of £25,000.[10]
Maxwell Fyfe played a leading role in drafting the party'sIndustrial Charter of 1947 and chaired the committee into Conservative Party organisation that resulted in theMaxwell 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 thediversity 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 toconstituency parties and making candidates more uniform.[1]
Maxwell Fyfe was a champion ofEuropean integration and a member of the Parliamentary Assembly of theCouncil of Europe from August 1949 to May 1952, becoming the Chair of the Assembly's Committee on Legal and Administrative Questions, andrapporteur on the committee drafting theEuropean Convention on Human Rights. In his memoirs[11] he criticised SirAnthony Eden for a negative stance that derailed the UK's opportunity to become a leader in Europe. Eden always rejected this and considered alibel action against Maxwell Fyfe.[1]
Shortly before theUnited Kingdom general election of 1951, Maxwell Fyfe caused a stir when he appeared to hint in a radio interview that a Conservative government might legislate to curb the power of trade unions. When the Conservative Party was returned to power in the election, Churchill thought it unwise to appoint him Minister of Labour, and Maxwell Fyfe became bothHome Secretary and cabinet minister for Welsh affairs. He was responsible for guiding several complicated pieces of legislation through the Commons, in particular those that establishedcommercial television. He gained a reputation as a hard-working, thorough and reliable cabinet member.[1]
In 1952, theDirector General of MI5 (DG) was made directly answerable to the Home Secretary rather than the Prime Minister. Given this novel responsibility, Maxwell Fyfe issued the Maxwell Fyfe Directive which became thede facto constitution of the Security Service until theSecurity Service Act 1989 set it on a statutory basis.[12] WhenSir Percy Sillitoe resigned as DG in 1953, Maxwell Fyfe delegated the shortlisting of a successor to a committee of civil servants chaired bySir Edward Bridges. The committee put forwardDick White andSir Kenneth Strong. Maxwell Fyfe endorsed the committee's preference for White, observing to Churchill that an internal appointment would be good for the morale of the service.[13]
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"[14] by dramatically increased arrests of male homosexuals through police surveillance and entrapment via the use ofagents provocateurs, tapped telephones, forged documents and the absence of warrants.[15] From 1,276 prosecutions in 1939 for actual or attempted sodomy or gross indecency, a year after he had assumed the office of Home Secretary prosecutions had soared to 5,443.[15] Fyfe subsequently sanctioned the establishment of theWolfenden Report into homosexuality, but had he known its findings would recommend decriminalisation, it is unlikely he would have done so.[citation needed]
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 Wolfenden Report, which had recommended the decriminalisation of homosexual acts betweenconsenting adults.Geraldine Bedell viewed this stance as ironic, since it was Fyfe, while Home Secretary, who had led the opposition to law reform in the Lords.[16] As Bedell also notes: "Perhaps he thought, by handing over to a committee, to shelve the issue. Perhaps he assumedWolfenden would find against, in which case, he chose a curious chairman, because Wolfenden had a gay son,Jeremy." Kilmuir still opposed liberalisation when a bill was introduced in the Lords (byLord Arran) in 1965. Says Bedell: "For the opposition, Lord Kilmuir warned against licensing the 'buggers' clubs' which he claimed were operating behind innocent-looking doors all over London."[16] Maxwell Fyfe told the Conservative backbencherSir Robert Boothby, who was known in parliamentary circles to be bisexual, that it was not his intention to legalise homosexuality: "I am not going down in history", he told Boothby, "as the man who madesodomy legal."[17]
During his tenure as Home Secretary, he was embroiled in the controversy surrounding thehanging ofDerek Bentley.[1] 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 ofcorporal punishment.[1]
Maxwell Fyfe remained ambitious and aDaily Mirror opinion poll in 1954, on the popular favourite to succeed Churchill as Party leader andprime minister, had him behind Eden and Butler but well ahead of Macmillan.[1] In his memoirs (Political Adventure, p233) he later wrote that he had hoped to emerge as a compromise leader likeBonar 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, Maxwell Fyfe sought the office ofLord Chancellor.[1]
On 19 October 1954 he was raised to the peerage asViscount Kilmuir, ofCreich in theCounty of Sutherland,[20] and moved to theHouse of Lords and the "woolsack". Lord Kilmuir was a political Lord Chancellor, not restricting himself to his judicial role. He worked on many government issues including the constitution ofMalta, which he wanted to become part of the UK, and the creation of theRestrictive Practices Court. In his eight years in the post he only sat as a judge on 24 appeals to theHouse of Lords. Lord Kilmuir opposedSydney Silverman's 1956private member's bill to abolish capital punishment. He described it as "an unwise and dangerous measure, the presence of which on the statute book would be a disaster for the country and a menace to the people". However, Kilmuir chaired the cabinet committee that recommended limiting the death penalty's scope and which led to theHomicide Act 1957. He feared the consequences ofimmigration to the United Kingdom and presented a report to the cabinet in 1956. Lord Kilmuir contended that the military intervention in the 1956Suez Crisis was justified under theself-defence provisions ofArticle 51 of theUnited Nations Charter.[1]
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 bySir Reginald Manningham-Buller, the Attorney-General. Kilmuir was madeBaron Fyfe of Dornoch, ofDornoch in the County of Sutherland, andEarl of Kilmuir on 20 July 1962[21] to cushion the blow of retirement.[1][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]
He marriedSylvia Harrison in 1925 and they had three daughters, one of whom pre-deceased him. His brother-in-law was the actorSir Rex Harrison.[1]
As Home Secretary, he often travelled toWales. In the valleys ofSouth Wales he was nicknamedDai Bananas,Fyffes being one of Britain's major importers of the fruit.[24]
After government, Kilmuir joined the board of directors ofPlessey but his health soon declined. He died atWithyham, Sussex, on 27 January 1967 and wascremated. His ashes were buried at the church of St Michael and All Angels at Withyham. His wealth at death was £22,202 (equivalent to £500,000 in 2023). His titles, which could pass only to sons, became extinct, as he had fathered only daughters.[1]
Among his honours were:[1]
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David Maxwell Fyfe has been portrayed by the following actors in film, television and theatre productions:[29]
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Media related toDavid Maxwell Fyfe at Wikimedia Commons| Parliament of the United Kingdom | ||
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| Preceded by | Member of Parliament forLiverpool West Derby 1935–1954 | Succeeded by |
| Legal offices | ||
| Preceded by | Solicitor-General for England 1942–1945 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Attorney-General for England 1945 | Succeeded by |
| Political offices | ||
| Preceded by | Home Secretary 1951–1954 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain 1954–1962 | Succeeded by |
| Academic offices | ||
| Preceded by | Rector of the University of St Andrews 1955–1958 | Succeeded by |
| Peerage of the United Kingdom | ||
| New creation | Earl of Kilmuir 1962–1967 | Extinct |
| Viscount Kilmuir 1954–1967 | ||
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