G. A. H. Branson

Sir George Arthur Harwin Branson PC (11 July 1871 – 23 April 1951), known professionally as G. A. H. Branson, was an English barrister who became a judge of the High Court of Justice. In that role he was known as Mr Justice Branson.

In his youth Branson was notable as an oarsman and rowed in the University of Cambridge boat for the Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race of 1893. He was the grandfather of Richard Branson.

Born at Great Yarmouth in 1871, Branson was the son of Mary Ann (Brown) and James Henry Arthur Branson, senior acting magistrate at Calcutta, India, who himself had been born in 1839 at Madras.

He was educated at Bedford School, where he was a scholar, and at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was an Exhibitioner. He took his degree in the Classical Tripos and was also Captain of First Trinity and a rowing blue, taking the bow of the Cambridge Boat for the Boat Race of 1893.

In 1894, after leaving Cambridge, Branson was articled to a firm of solicitors, Markby, Stewart & Co. He also became a member of the Inner Temple and in 1899 was called to the bar and joined the Northern Circuit. Writing books on the helped to make his name as a young barrister, and he was Junior Counsel to the Treasury from 1912 to 1921. In 1918 he was elected as a Master of the Bench of the Inner Temple. In 1921 he was knighted and appointed a Justice of the High Court of Justice, King's Bench Division, serving until 1939. In January 1940 he was made a member of the Privy Council.

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