Sir Denis William Dobson (17 October 1908 – 15 December 1995) was a British

solicitor A solicitor is a legal practitioner who traditionally deals with most of the legal matters in some jurisdictions. A person must have legally-defined qualifications, which vary from one jurisdiction to another, to be described as a solicitor and ...

barrister A barrister is a type of lawyer in common law jurisdictions. Barristers mostly specialise in courtroom advocacy and litigation. Their tasks include taking cases in superior courts and tribunals, drafting legal pleadings, researching law and ...

and civil servant who served as Permanent Secretary to the Lord Chancellor's Department and Clerk of the Crown in Chancery from 5 April 1968 to 15 April 1977.

Life

Dobson was born on 17 October 1908 to William Dobson, a shipbuilder, and his wife Laura. He was admitted to

Charterhouse School (God having given, I gave) , established = , closed = , type = Public school Independent day and boarding school , religion = Church of England , president ...

in 1922, matriculating to Trinity College, Cambridge in 1926. He graduated in 1930 with a first class degree in law, and was added to the rolls as a solicitor in 1933. Moving to London he spent a year in a City firm before, disenchanted, joining a company of parliamentary draftsmen. During the Second World War, Dobson served with the Royal Air Force, and was appointed an

OBE The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...

in 1945. Suffering from tuberculosis he was unable to join the legal branch of the

Foreign Office Foreign may refer to: Government * Foreign policy, how a country interacts with other countries * Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in many countries ** Foreign Office, a department of the UK government ** Foreign office and foreign minister * Unit ...

, and he instead joined the Statutory Publications Office, part of HM Treasury. There the Treasury Solicitor, Sir Thomas Barnes, introduced him to

Albert Napier Sir Albert Edward Alexander Napier (4 September 1881 – 18 July 1973) was a British civil servant who served as Permanent Secretary to the Lord Chancellor's Department between 1944 and 1954. The youngest son of Robert Napier, 1st Baron Napier ...

, the Permanent Secretary to the Lord Chancellor's Office, who offered him a job. Accepting, he transferred to the Lord Chancellor's Department in April 1947, and was soon recognised as a potential future Permanent Secretary. With this in mind he qualified as a barrister, and was

called to the Bar The call to the bar is a legal term of art in most common law jurisdictions where persons must be qualified to be allowed to argue in court on behalf of another party and are then said to have been "called to the bar" or to have received "call to ...

by the Middle Temple in 1951. After Napier retired, Dobson became the assistant to the new Permanent Secretary,

George Coldstream Sir George Phillips Coldstream (20 December 1907 – 19 April 2004) was a British barrister and civil servant who served as Permanent Secretary to the Lord Chancellor's Department and Clerk of the Crown in Chancery from 4 June 1954 to 5 April 1 ...

, and when Coldstream retired in 1968 Dobson was made Permanent Secretary and knighted. Dobson was made a KCB in 1969, and a Queen's Counsel in 1971. Initially a reformer, by the time he became Permanent Secretary Dobson had become more conservative in his outlook, and is believed to have prevented several Lord Chancellors from making reforming actions. This was a particularly bad time for a conservative Permanent Secretary, since the report of the

Beeching Commission Beeching is an English surname. Either a derivative of the old English ''bece'', ''bæce'' "stream", hence "dweller by the stream" or of the old English ''bece'' "beech-tree" hence "dweller by the beech tree".''Oxford Dictionary of English Surnames' ...

and the transformation of the small Lord Chancellor's Department into a fully fledged government office needed a more radical Permanent Secretary. Dobson retired in 1977, sitting as a member of the Advisory Council on Public Records until 1983, and died on 15 December 1995.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dobson, Denis 1908 births 1995 deaths People educated at Charterhouse School British King's Counsel English solicitors Knights Commander of the Order of the Bath Officers of the Order of the British Empire Lawyers awarded knighthoods Permanent Secretaries to the Lord Chancellor's Office 20th-century King's Counsel 20th-century British lawyers 20th-century English lawyers