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David Maxwell Fyfe, 1st Earl of Kilmuir

The Right Honourable
The Earl of Kilmuir
GCVO PC QC
David Maxwell Fyfe.jpg
The Earl of Kilmuir in the Lord Chancellor's robes
Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain
In office
18 October 1954 – 13 July 1962
Monarch Elizabeth II
Prime Minister Winston Churchill
Anthony Eden
Harold Macmillan
Preceded by The Lord 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 and Wales
In office
25 May – 26 July 1945
Prime Minister Winston Churchill
Preceded by Sir Donald Somervell
Succeeded by Sir Hartley Shawcross
Solicitor General for England and Wales
In office
4 March 1942 – 25 May 1945
Prime Minister Winston Churchill
Preceded by Sir William Jowitt
Succeeded by Sir Walter Monckton
Personal details
Born 29 May 1900 (1900-05-29)
Edinburgh, Scotland, UK
Died 27 January 1967 (1967-01-28) (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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