Gordon Hewart, 1st Viscount Hewart

The Right Honourable The Viscount Hewart Kt PC
Lord Chief Justice of England
In office 8 March 1922 – 12 October 1940
Monarch	George V Edward VIII George VI
Preceded by	The Lord Trevethin
Succeeded by	The Viscount Caldecote
Attorney General for England
In office 10 January 1919 – 6 March 1922
Monarch	George V
Prime Minister	David Lloyd George
Preceded by	Sir F. E. Smith
Succeeded by	Sir Ernest Pollock
Solicitor General for England
In office 10 December 1916 – 10 January 1919
Monarch	George V
Prime Minister	David Lloyd George
Preceded by	Sir George Cave
Succeeded by	Sir Ernest Pollock
Personal details
Born	Gordon Hewart 7 January 1870 Bury, Lancashire, England
Died	5 May 1943(1943-05-05) (aged 73) Totteridge, Hertfordshire, England
Political party	Liberal
Alma mater	University College, Oxford
Occupation	Politician, judge

Gordon Hewart, 1st Viscount Hewart, Kt PC (7 January 1870 – 5 May 1943) was a politician and judge in the United Kingdom.

Background and education[]

Hewart was born in Bury, Lancashire, the eldest son of Giles Hewart, a draper, and Annie Elizabeth Jones. He was educated at Bury Grammar School, Manchester Grammar School and University College, Oxford.

Political and legal career[]

Hewart as Lord Chief Justice, by John St Helier Lander.

Hewart began his career as a journalist for the Manchester Guardian and the Morning Leader. He was called to the bar at the Inner Temple in 1902, joining the Northern Circuit. He took silk in 1912.

He was a Liberal Member of Parliament for Leicester from 1913, and, after the constituency was divided in 1918, Leicester East. An advanced Liberal, he was appointed Solicitor General in 1916, receiving the customary knighthood, and was sworn of the Privy Council in 1918. He was Attorney General from 10 January 1919 to 6 March 1922. He was given a seat in the Cabinet in 1921. While in office, he refused offers to become Chief Secretary for Ireland or Home Secretary; at the time, the Attorney General had the right of first refusal for the post of Lord Chief Justice, which was Hewart's ambition.

Lord Chief Justice[]

On the resignation of the Earl of Reading as Lord Chief Justice of England in 1921, Hewart asked to succeed him. However, David Lloyd George was reluctant to lose him, and as a compromise the 77-year-old Sir A. T. Lawrence (Lord Trevethin from August 1921) was appointed instead as a stop-gap; he was required to furnish an undated letter of resignation to Lloyd George, an arrangement which scandalised many: Lord Birkenhead thought it 'illegal', while judges boycotted the farewell ceremony for Lord Reading.

On 3 March 1922, Trevethin 'resigned' (an event which he learned from The Times), and Hewart was duly appointed Lord Chief Justice of England on 8 March 1922, and was elevated to the peerage as Baron Hewart, of Bury, in the County of Lancaster on 24 March 1922.^[1]

In May 1922 Hewart was closely involved in the drafting of the Constitution of the Irish Free State. He worked closely with his Irish counterpart, Hugh Kennedy in May 1922 to finalise the text in time for elections the following month.^[2]

In 1929 Hewart published The New Despotism, in which he asserted that the rule of law in Britain was being undermined by the executive at the expense of the legislature and the courts.^[3] This book was very controversial^[4] and led to the appointment of a Committee on Ministers' Powers—chaired by the Earl of Donoughmore—but its Report rejected Hewart's arguments.

He has been described as "one of the most vigorous and vociferous believers in the impeccability of the English jury system of this or any other century".^[5] However, in 1931, Hewart made legal history, when (sitting with Mr Justice Branson and Mr Justice Hawke) he quashed the conviction for murder of William Herbert Wallace, on the grounds that the conviction was not supported by the weight of the evidence. In other words, the jury was wrong.

Lord Hewart was the originator (paraphrased from the original) of the aphorism "Not only must Justice be done; it must also be seen to be done."^[6]

In 1940 Hewart was asked by telephone by 10 Downing Street to resign; he duly did so on 12 October 1940. On his retirement he was created Viscount Hewart, of Bury in the County Palatine of Lancaster, on 1 November 1940.^[7]

He died 5 May 1943 in Totteridge, Barnet, Hertfordshire aged 73.

Family[]

Lord Hewart married twice; first in 1892 Sarah Wood Riley, daughter of J. H. Riley and secondly in 1934, Jean Stewart, the daughter of J. R. Stewart. With his first wife he had a daughter Katharine and a son and heir, Hugh.^[8] When he died in Totteridge, on 5 May 1943, his titles were inherited by his son, Hugh Hewart, 2nd Viscount Hewart.

Arms[]

Coat of arms of Gordon Hewart, 1st Viscount Hewart hide

Crest In front of the trunk of a tree sprouting thereon an owl Proper three crosses patée fesswise Or. Escutcheon Argent on a fess Sable between two owls Proper in chief and in base a cross patée of the second a fasces Or. Supporters On either side an owl Proper charged with a fasces erect Or. Motto Nulla Retrorsum.[9]

Notable decisions[]

• Rex v Sussex Justices, ex parte McCarthy
• Rex v Wallace

Notes[]

References[]

• Leigh Rayment's Peerage Pages

Further reading[]

• R. Jackson, The chief: the biography of Gordon Hewart, lord chief justice of England, 1922–40 (1959)
• R. F. V. Heuston, Lives of the Lord Chancellors, 1885–1940 (1964)
• R. Stevens, The independence of the judiciary: the view from the lord chancellor's office (1993)
• R. Stevens, 'Hewart, Gordon, first Viscount Hewart (1870–1943)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2004)

External links[]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Gordon Hewart, 1st Viscount Hewart.

• Works by or about Gordon Hewart, 1st Viscount Hewart at Internet Archive
• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Gordon Hewart