The Earl Jowitt | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Jowitt,c. 1945 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Lord Chancellor | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| In office 27 July 1945 – 26 October 1951 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Monarch | George VI | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Prime Minister | Clement Attlee | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Preceded by | The Viscount Simon | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Succeeded by | The Lord Simonds | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Leader of the Opposition in the House of Lords Shadow Leader of the House of Lords | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| In office 1952 – 14 December 1955 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Party Leader | Clement Attlee Herbert Morrison (acting) Hugh Gaitskell | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Preceded by | The Viscount Addison | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Succeeded by | The Earl Alexander of Hillsborough | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Personal details | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Born | (1885-04-15)15 April 1885 Stevenage,Hertfordshire, England | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Died | 16 August 1957(1957-08-16) (aged 72) Bury St Edmunds,Suffolk, England | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Political party | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Spouse | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Alma mater | New College, Oxford | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
William Allen Jowitt, 1st Earl Jowitt,PC, KC (15 April 1885 – 16 August 1957) was a BritishLiberal Party,National Labour and thenLabour Party politician andlawyer who served asLord Chancellor underClement Attlee from1945 to1951.
He was born inStevenage, Hertfordshire, the son of Reverend William Jowitt,Rector of Stevenage, by his wife Louisa Margaret Allen.
At the age of nine, he was sent toNorthaw Place, apreparatory school inPotters Bar, Middlesex, where he first met and was looked after by fellow studentClement Attlee, the futureLabour PartyPrime Minister of the United Kingdom.
From Northaw, he went toMarlborough College, then toNew College, Oxford where he studiedlaw. He was admitted to theMiddle Temple on 15 November 1906 and wascalled to the Bar on 23 June 1909.[1]
 | This sectiondoes notcite anysources. Please helpimprove this section byadding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged andremoved.(January 2023) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
Jowitt became a member ofchambers in Brick Court inLondon. He proved himself a skilled advocate, attracting attention for his subdued and charming manner when barristers were more inclined to browbeat witnesses. He became aKing's Counsel the day before the1922 general election in which he was electedMember of Parliament (MP) forThe Hartlepools. Jowitt was a member of the faction of theLiberal Party led byH. H. Asquith and somewhat radical in his beliefs. He continued to practise law whilst abackbench MP and was not considered a great orator in theHouse of Commons.[1]
Jowitt was re-elected, now part of the re-united Liberal Party, at the1923 general election, and in 1924, he was a member of theRoyal Commission on lunacy. He lost his seat in the1924 general election. Jowitt stood successfully inPreston in the1929 general election, again elected as a Liberal. Following the formation of aminorityLabour government, he was offered the position ofattorney general by the newprime minister,Ramsay MacDonald.
Labour had few experienced lawyers in its ranks in Parliament and had experienced problems filling the positions of legal officers in its first government. Jowitt agreed, but resigned his seat and stood again as a candidate for the Labour Party. At theby-election in July 1929, Preston re-elected him with an increased majority. As was customary, Jowitt received aknighthood upon becoming attorney general. His work mainly concerned the drafting of governmentbills, particularly the reversal of theTrade Disputes and Trade Unions Act 1927.
As was still the custom for the attorney general, he occasionally prosecuted in high-profile cases, notablySidney Harry Fox, charged with murdering his mother by suffocating her and then setting fire to her hotel room. It was said that a single question from Jowitt ("Explain to me why you shut the door?") sealed Fox's fate since Fox could think of no convincing answer.
When the Labour government split over thefinancial crisis in 1931, Jowitt was one of only a handful of Labour MPs to follow MacDonald into theNational Government. He was uncomfortable in a coalition with theConservatives but believed that the proposed spending cuts causing the split were necessary, and the coalition was necessary to force them through. Like others who joined the National Government, he was expelled from the Labour Party.
He was made aPrivy Councillor but found himself in a difficult electoral position when he could not secure the withdrawal of the Conservative candidate in Preston in the1931 general election. He thus stood instead as theNational Labour candidate for theCombined English Universities, but there too, he competed with other candidates supporting the National Government and was defeated. MacDonald persuaded Jowitt to remain as Attorney General in the hope that a new seat could be found to maintain the handful of National Labour positions in the government, but that proved impossible and Jowitt stepped down. He was replaced as Attorney General in January 1932 and returned to the Bar. Though relatively new to the party, Jowitt greatly regretted the split with Labour. He remained close to MacDonald, but afterStanley Baldwin became Prime Minister in 1935, Jowitt began campaigning for Labour.
A number ofconstituency Labour Parties attempted to nominate him as their candidate for thegeneral election that year, but he was still expelled. Unable to stand for Labour, he refused to stand for any other party or as an independent.
Jowitt was readmitted to the Labour Party in November 1936. Still a public figure, he was a critic of the National Government's policy ofappeasement, and in 1937, he called for the state control of the arms industry and rapid rearmament to face the growing threat of fascism on the Continent.
In February 1939 he called for the recreation of theMinistry of Munitions. In October, he was adopted as Labour's candidate at aby-election inAshton-under-Lyne and was elected unopposed, due to thewar-time electoral pact.[2]
| This sectiondoes notcite anysources. Please helpimprove this section byadding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged andremoved.(January 2023) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
Eight months later,Winston Churchill appointed Jowitt asSolicitor General in his coalition government. Jowitt dispensed legal advice to the government for two years inWorld War II before he was placed in charge of planning for reconstruction. He also held Cabinet positions that were mostly sinecures such asPaymaster General and thenMinister without Portfolio in that role.
In 1944, he becameMinister of National Insurance at the head of a new government department. He resigned from the government when Labour left the coalition in May 1945, afterVictory in Europe Day, and he was re-elected for Ashton-under-Lyne in thegeneral election in July.
After a landslide victory in the 1945 election, Labour formed its first majority government. Prime MinisterClement Attlee appointed Jowitt asLord Chancellor. As soon as he was appointed, Jowitt met withUS Supreme Court JusticeRobert H. Jackson to resolve outstanding points of contention over the draftLondon Charter, which would govern the procedures of theNuremberg Trials. He retained the Conservative MP and outgoing Attorney General,Sir David Maxwell-Fyfe, as the official liaison but indicated that the new Attorney General,Sir Hartley Shawcross, would serve as Britain's chief prosecutor in the trials themselves.
Jowitt introduced and saw signed theUnited Nations Act 1946, the legislation that governs how the UK subordinates itself to the UN.[3][4]
He was raised to the peerage asBaron Jowitt, of Stevenage in theCounty of Hertford, on 2 August 1945 and entered theHouse of Lords.[5] He led much important judicial legislation during the life of the Labour government.
Jowitt was also responsible for some key changes to the legal culture in Britain. He attempted to end political and social imbalances in the Magistrates Courts and is considered to have been the firstLord Chancellor to adopt a policy of appointing judges purely on the basis of merit.[citation needed]
As Lord Chancellor, he also served asspeaker of the House of Lords, a delicate job given the Conservative majority in the Lords.Christopher Addison, Labour's leader in the Lords, died shortly after the party's defeat in the1951 general election.
Labour was now in opposition, and Jowitt took over as leader of the Labour peers. He was createdViscount Jowitt, of Stevenage in the County of Hertford, on 20 January 1947,[6] and was awarded anearldom by Attlee in the1951 Prime Minister's Resignation Honours,[7] being createdViscount Stevenage, of Stevenage in the County of Hertford, andEarl Jowitt on 24 January 1952.[8]
A senior figure in the party, and a member of the Shadow Cabinet, Jowitt was careful to keep the Labour peers out of the conflict between theBevanites andGaitskellites in the early 1950s. The opposition to the Conservative government in the Lords was meagre but sometimes successfully rallied support from government backbenchers.
In 1955, for instance, Jowitt led a successful rebellion in the Lords over a government bill to criminalise the medical use ofmarijuana. Jowitt was a prominent spokesperson against human rights abuses during the suppression of theMau Mau Uprising in Kenya, teaming up with theArchbishop of Canterbury to launch a review of the circumstances surrounding the resignation of ColonelArthur Young as Commissioner of Police in the colony.[9] He stood down as leader in November 1955, at the age of 70.
Jowitt married Lesley McIntyre, a daughter of James Patrick McIntyre, in 1913. In 1922, following Jowitt's election as an MP, they set up home in Upper Brook Street, Mayfair.[10] They commissioned decorative mosaics fromBoris Anrep, titledVarious Moments in the Life of a Lady of Fashion with Lady Jowitt shown telephoning in bed, in her bath, and at a nightclub.
The couple had one daughter, Penelope (1923-2007), who married George Wynn-Williams.
Jowitt died atBury St Edmunds,Suffolk, in August 1957, aged 72. His peerages did not survive his death, as he had no male heirs.
Jowitt wrote two books on espionage and compiled a legal dictionary, which was published posthumously in 1959, completed by Clifford Walsh, and became a standard reference work. It remains in print asJowitt's Dictionary of English Law.[11]
| Parliament of the United Kingdom | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Member of Parliament forThe Hartlepools 1922–1924 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by Tom Shaw Alfred Kennedy | Member of Parliament forPreston 1929–1931 With:Tom Shaw | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Member of Parliament forAshton-under-Lyne 1939–1945 | Succeeded by |
| Legal offices | ||
| Preceded by | Attorney-General for England 1929–1932 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Solicitor-General for England 1940–1942 | Succeeded by |
| Political offices | ||
| Preceded by | Paymaster General 1942 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain 1945–1951 | Succeeded by |
| Party political offices | ||
| Preceded by | Leader of the Labour Party in the House of Lords 1952–1955 | Succeeded by |
| Peerage of the United Kingdom | ||
| New creation | Earl Jowitt 1951–1957 | Extinct |
| Viscount Jowitt 1947–1957 | ||
| Baron Jowitt 1946–1957 | ||
Media from Commons
|  | |
.svg)
