Sidney Rowlatt

Sir Sidney Arthur Taylor Rowlatt KC KCSI PC (20 July 1862 – 1 March 1945) was an English lawyer and judge, best remembered for his controversial presidency of the Rowlatt Committee, a sedition committee appointed in 1918 by the British Indian Government to evaluate the links between political terrorism in India, especially Bengal and the Punjab, and the German government and the Bolsheviks in Russia. The committee gave rise to the Rowlatt Act, an extension of the Defence of India Act 1915

Rowlatt was the son of A. H. Rowlatt of Alexandria. He was educated at Fettes College and King's College, Cambridge where he was a distinguished classics scholar. After graduation, he became a fellow of his college and taught high classics for a while at Eton where he was popular with his students.He decided to take up the law and was called to the Bar by the Inner Temple in 1886. He joined the Oxford circuit but made slow progress, devilling for Robert Finlay. When William Danckwerts took silk in 1900, the post of junior counsel to the Inland Revenue fell vacant and Finlay recommended Rowlatt. Then, in 1905 Finlay, now Attorney-General, gave him the post of Treasury devil, a role in which Rowlatt excelled with his energy and affability. He became a bencher of the Inner Temple in 1906 and later its Treasurer.