David Maxwell-Fyfe
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The Right Honourable The Earl of Kilmuir GCVO PC QC |
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The Earl of Kilmuir in the Lord Chancellor's robes
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| Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain | |
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In office 18 October 1954 – 13 July 1962 |
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| Monarch | Elizabeth II |
| Prime Minister |
Winston Churchill Anthony Eden Harold Macmillan |
| Preceded by | The Lord Simonds |
| Succeeded by | The Lord Dilhorne |
| Home Secretary | |
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In office 27 October 1951 – 19 October 1954 |
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| Prime Minister | Winston Churchill |
| Preceded by | James Chuter Ede |
| Succeeded by | Gwilym Lloyd George |
| Attorney General for England and Wales | |
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In office 25 May – 26 July 1945 |
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| Prime Minister | Winston Churchill |
| Preceded by | Sir Donald Somervell |
| Succeeded by | Sir Hartley Shawcross |
| Solicitor General for England and Wales | |
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In office 4 March 1942 – 25 May 1945 |
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| Prime Minister | Winston Churchill |
| Preceded by | Sir William Jowitt |
| Succeeded by | Sir Walter Monckton |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
29 May 1900 Edinburgh, Scotland, UK |
| Died |
27 January 1967 (aged 66) Withyham, Sussex, England, UK |
| Nationality | Scottish, British |
| Political party | Conservative |
| Spouse(s) | Sylvia Harrison (d. 1992) |
| Alma mater | Balliol College, Oxford |
David Patrick Maxwell Fyfe, 1st Earl of Kilmuir, GCVO, PC, QC (29 May 1900 – 27 January 1967), known as Sir David Maxwell Fyfe from 1942 to 1954 and as Viscount Kilmuir from 1954 to 1962, was a British Conservative politician, lawyer and judge who combined an industrious and precocious legal career with political ambitions that took him to the offices of Solicitor General, Attorney General, Home Secretary and Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain.
One of the prosecutors at the Nuremberg Trials, he was instrumental in drafting the European Convention on Human Rights. However, he was also a controversial Home Secretary who refused clemency to commute Derek Bentley's highly controversial death sentence. His political ambitions were ultimately dashed in Harold Macmillan's cabinet reshuffle of July 1962.
Born in Edinburgh, the only son of William Thomson Fyfe, Headmaster of Aberdeen Grammar School, by his second wife Isabella Campbell, daughter of David Campbell, of Dornoch, co. Sutherland, he was educated at George Watson's College and Balliol College, Oxford, where, owing to his self-confessed interest in politics, he achieved only a third-class degree in Greats. He also took time out from education to serve in the Scots Guards in 1918-19, at the end of the World War I. After graduation, he went on to work for the British Commonwealth Union as political secretary to Sir Patrick Hannon MP, studying law in his spare time. He entered Gray's Inn and was called to the bar in 1922. He became a pupil of George Lynskey in Liverpool then joined his chambers to practise.
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