LITTLE MAN OF BURY

Evening Star, Issue 22573, 15 February 1937, Page 11

LITTLE MAN OF BURY

FROM OBSCURITY TO PEERAGE King Edward’s abdication involves many legal formalities —formalities which will have to be attended to by Lord Hewart, the Lord Chief Justice, in the absence of Lord Hailsham, the Lord Chancellor, who is ill,. Here is the story of Lord Hewart, the Little Man from Bury, who rose from obscurity to a peerage. A friend told me recently that Lord Hewart is engaged in writing hia memoirs, wrote Dr H. R. Oswald, in the ‘ Sunday Chronicle.’ This ex-Manchester Grammar School hoy from Bury has been lawyer, journalist, M.P., Solicitor-General, Privy Councillor, Cabinet Minister, and Lord Chief Justice. He has risen from obscurity to a peerage solely by indisputable brilliance and ceaseless hard work. la these days of political influence and publicity how many new. peers can say as much ? I was called to the Bar in Hilary Term, 1894. It was not until eight years later that a quiet, unostentatious young man of the name of Gordon Hewart became a barrister of the Inner Temple. ■ For a time he remained unnoticed. Then, quite suddenly, everyone began saying that this quiet newcomer had a tremendously wide knowledge of the law. Famous mem began to scramble to obtain the services of young Hewart as junior in important cases. Already he had quite a reputation in Manchester; London soon began to bow to the opinion of the northern town. In 1904, when I was coroner of the south-east district of London, I had to inquire into the death of a boy, who had been run over by one_ of the first cars to cause a fatality in England; perhaps it was the very first. The car was steam-propelled, and travelled “at about the speed of a horse and cart,” according to one of the witnesses in the case. . Discussing the ease one night with a friend, I asked if anyone proposed specialising in motor-car law, in case they should become a common method of locomotion. “ Gordon Hewart, that little chap in Harcourt Buildings,” was the surprising reply. “He knows it all. In fact, there doesn’t seem much that he doesn’t know. He’ll go far, that fellow.” Yet Lord Hewart is a man who has flouted all the superstitions concerning the pursuit of fame. He married at 22. There was no cautious waiting for him! And he married neither money nor influence; he knew that it was unnecessary. Indeed, at the time of his marriage he was already winning a name in journalism, working in the Press Gallery of the House of Coihmons, where later he was to figure prominently as a Cabinet Minister. FIRST BIG CASE. Britain noticed him first when he prosecuted. in the capacity' of a newlymade Attorney-General, in the sensational Colonel Rutherford case shortly after the war. It is amazing that his swift rise to legal prominence did not attract greater public interest; in 17 years he had advanced from being an unknown lawyer to one of the most important posts in British law. The Rutherford case was yet another variation of the eternal triangle. Rutherford was an extraordinarily sensitive man, whose nerves had been ruined by the war, in which he won the D.S.O. and other brilliant recognition. His beautiful wife undoubtedly suffered during the nervous attacks which tormented her husband after 1918; and perhaps this state of affairs helped to deepen a friendship she formed with one of Rutherford’s brother officers, Major Miles Seton. The two men had been friends for years, yet, one night Rutherford went to a lions where Major Seton was staying, had a short talk with him in private, and then shot him no less than 14 times. When the colonel was found he was walking about muttering, his eyes were vacant, and his empty service revolver was clutched in his hand. The subsequent trial was a dramatic one. Sir Gordon Hewart (he had been knighted not long before) prosecuted for the Crown, and compiled a very strong case. Indeed, there was never any doubt that Seton had been deliberately killed. But tli© defence was a plea of insanity ; and no one needed to look twice at the miserable, vacant prisoner to realise that his mind was then totally unhinged. _ The jury filed out of the box to consider their verdict; their footsteps had hardly died away when they emerged again, their minds made up. Colonel Rutherford was sent to Broadmoor. It is a curious commentary on fame that the Attorney-General, who had won scores of really difficult oases previously without attaining universal notice, now jumped into the limelight, when, in a sense, he had failed to gain the end for which he had pleaded.

But the case captured romantic interest and received headlines; and after it the world watched to see what Sir Gordon Hewart would do next. From that moment the onlookers were not disappointed. Sir Gordon was one of the signatories to the Irish Peace Treaty of 1921. He was appointed President of the War Compensations Court—a post requiring infinite tact as well as an incisive ability to probe realities from among masses of unimportant evidence. An M.P. from 1913 to 1918, he was created a Privy Councillor in the latter year; and after three more years in the House of Commons ho was made a member of the Cabinet. TRUE MURDER APPEAL. Very shortly after he was made Lord Chief Justice, Lord Hewart and two other appeal judges dismissed one of the most surprising criminal appeals in legal history. This was the sequel to a case that passed through one of my courts. It began when a girl named Gertrude Yates was found murdered in a basement flat off the Fulham road, London. Detectives were soon on the_ spot, and as the result of their investigations a man who called himself Major Ronald True was arrested and brought before me. At the inquest True seemed not only callous, but almost impudent. He had obtained from somewhere an empty eyeglass rim, and during my hearing of the case he screwed this rim into his eye and mimicked my gestures. I use au eyeglass for reading or studying documents. There seemed no doubt that True had committed the murder, and I committed him for trial. ' The late Mr Justice M’Cardie tried the case, and despite a brilliant defence by Sir Henry Curtis-Bennett, True was found guilty and sentenced to be hanged. An appeal was allowed, and the case came before Lord Chief Justice Hewart. His handling of the appeal was masterly. The whole problem revolved round the question of True’s sanity. H© had played with a woolly rabbit during his trial before Mr M’Cardie, and I was told that the deprivation of morphia tablets while in prison had affected the prisoner’s mind; it was alleged that he had taken morphia heavily before his arrest. The case was debated point by point, and Sir Henry quoted precedents as far back as 1843; but in the end the appeal was dismissed, and True was sent to the condemned cell. While he awaited the hangman, however, a startling new development took place. Three famous doctors were sent to examine him, and gave a report on his sanity. , Britain was astounded one morning to read that Ronald True, a guilty murderer, whose appeal had been dismissed, was now to be sent to Broadmoor. It seemed that Lord Hewart’s early years as Lord Chief Justice were fated to he busy and difficult ones. In 1922 he dealt with an appeal from a very famous poisoneij also a major, though I believe this one had more claim to the title than Ronald True possessed. Major Herbert Armstrong was a clever solicitor, and quite a fair amateur chemist. During 1921 his wife fell ill, and during her illness Armstrong drew up a will, which he induced her to sign, leaving him several thousand pounds in the event of her death. Then, with fiendish skill, he succeeded in giving his wife a fatal dose of arsenic. No suspicion was aroused at her death, and she was buried, with her husband, apparently stricken with sorrow, as her chief mourner. A year later, Armstrong’s rival solicitor in the little Welsh town where ho practised, fell ill, exhibiting symptoms similar to those from which Mrs Armstrong had died. The drawback of attempting to murder two people in the same way in the same small town is, of course, that someone is almost certain to become suspicious. In this case it was the local doctor. Armstrong was arrested, his wile s remains were exhumed, and he was charged with her murder. His defence was that his wife must somehow have poisoned herself. I did not serve him. Sir William Wilcox, Home Office pathologist, was called in, and stated definitely that the poison which killed Mrs Armstrong was taken within 24 hours of her death, and that she could not then have obtained or, taken it unassisted. Lord Hewart and the other appeal judges listened to all the evidence that was submitted, hut refused to alter the findings against Armstrong, and he was duly hanged. After dismissing the Armstrong appeal, Lord Hewart went on to gain fresh laurels in law with each succeeding year. OLD RETORT CALLED. He was one of the youngest men ever to be appointed to his present high position. On one occasion, however, the majesty of the law was questioned by no mightier authority than a London taximan 1 The story is told (I . hope his lordship will forgive me for repeating it, but his own sense of humour is famous) of an occasion when he jumped into fi, ‘taxi at a London station, and told

the driver to take him to the Courts of Justice. " . “ Ain't no such place ” was the disgruntled reply. “ No such place, my man? ” said the Lord Chief Justice in astonishment. “You heard what I said, I suppose? The Courts of Justice The Law Courts! ” “Ah—Law Courts, yus! ’ was the grumbling answer. “ I’ll take yer there all right. But they ain’t no Courts o’ Justice! ” I suppose the taximan had some reason for his unhappy attitude. However, had he but known, there certainly never entered his cab a more just and unbiased authority than his passenger of that very day. A legal genius of the utmost patience as well as the most penetrating research, Lord Hewart is kind as well as just. ... I have been told that he dislikes hearing murder appeals because he feels more deeply than most judges the responsibility of sending, a man, however guilty, to shameful death. To him this is more than a ritual; it is a terrible penalty of fame. I sometimes wonder whether he would not have become even more famous in politics. than he has done in law. I see no reason why he should not eventually have become Prime Minister, i>view of the brilliance shown in his short parliamentary career. But I doubt if Lord Hewart would really have been a happier man; with all his responsibilities and difficulties. I think he has always found in the intricacies of the. law the only profession that can completely satisfy his extraordinary analytical brain.