Sir Havilland Walter de Sausmarez, 1st Baronet (30 May 1861 – 5 March 1941) was a judge of various British colonial or consular courts in Africa and Asia, the Ottoman Empire and China. His last judicial position before retirement was as Chief Judge of the

British Supreme Court for China The British Supreme Court for China (originally the British Supreme Court for China and Japan) was a court established in the Shanghai International Settlement to try cases against British subjects in China, Japan and Korea under the principles o ...

. He later served as

Bailiff of Guernsey The title Bailiff of Guernsey has been used since at least the 13th century and indicated the leading citizen of Guernsey. The 90th and current Bailiff is Richard McMahon. History A ''Bailli'', the early Norman name for Bailiff was the perso ...

Early life

Sausmarez was born on 30 May 1861, the son of the Rev. Havilland de Sausmarez by his marriage to Anne Priaulx Walters. He was a scholar at Westminster, where he had a fine athletic record, including being Head of the Water. From there he went up to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he continued his career as an athlete and graduated BA in 1883. In 1881, while still at Cambridge, he was admitted to the Inner Temple 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 ...

in November 1884. He practised as a

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 ...

in England on the Southern Eastern Circuit and then moved to Africa, where he began to practise in Lagos, Nigeria, in 1891. He was acting

Queen's Advocate The King's Advocate (or Queen's Advocate when the monarch was female) was one of the Law Officers of the Crown. He represented the Crown in the ecclesiastical courts of the Church of England, where cases were argued not by barristers but by ad ...

of the

Colony of Lagos Lagos Colony was a British colonial possession centred on the port of Lagos in what is now southern Nigeria. Lagos was annexed on 6 August 1861 under the threat of force by Commander Beddingfield of HMS Prometheus who was accompanied by the Act ...

from June 1891 to January 1892.

Judicial appointments

De Sausmarez joined 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 ...

Judicial Service when he was appointed a consul in Zanzibar in June 1892. He held the office of Assistant Judge of the Consular Court in Zanzibar from 1893–97 and then held the office of Assistant Judge of the Supreme Consular Court for the Ottoman Empire between December 1897 and 1903. He was appointed judge of the Supreme Consular Court for the Ottoman Empire in 1903 and served until 1905. He was knighted in 1905. In 1905, de Sausmarez was appointed judge of the British Supreme Court for China and Corea (based in Shanghai). He served in that position until 1921. By virtue of his position as judge of the Supreme Court at Shanghai he served as president of the full court of the

Supreme Court of Hong Kong The Supreme Court of Hong Kong was the highest court in Hong Kong prior to the transfer of sovereignty of Hong Kong from the United Kingdom to the People's Republic of China in 1997 and heard cases of first instance and appeals from the Di ...

from 1910 to 1920. The ordinance creating the full court provided that the most senior judge on the bench would be president of the full court when it sat. He was knighted in 1905.

Return to Guernsey

Sausmarez retired in 1920 and was succeeded by

Skinner Turner Sir Skinner Turner (2 June 1868 – 5 July 1935) was a British judge who served in Kenya, Uganda, Siam and China. His last position was as the Chief Judge of the British Supreme Court for China from 1921 to 1927. Early life Turner was bo ...

. After leaving Shanghai, Sausmarez took up his residence at the

Sausmarez Manor Sausmarez Manor is a historic house in Saint Martin, Guernsey. The original manor house The first mention of the Sausmarez family in Guernsey is at the consecration of the Vale church in 1117 attended by Guillaume de Sausmarez, followed by ...

Guernsey Guernsey (; Guernésiais: ''Guernési''; french: Guernesey) is an island in the English Channel off the coast of Normandy that is part of the Bailiwick of Guernsey, a British Crown Dependency. It is the second largest of the Channel Islands ...

. As Seigneur of the manor of Sausmarez and as Chatelain of Jerbourg, he held the titular office of ''Third Cup-bearer to the Duke of Normandy'', held by his forebears for many centuries. In 1922 he was appointed

, a position he maintained until 1929. His wife, Annie, Lady de Sausmarez, GBE, was a philanthropist.

De Sausmarez Baronetcy

The de Sausmarez Baronetcy, of Jerburg in Guernsey, was created on 26 June 1928 for Havilland de Sausmarez. He died on 5 March 1941 without issue and the title became extinct upon his death.Obituary, Times, May 27, 1941, p7

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sausmarez, Havilland de 1861 births 1941 deaths Bailiffs of Guernsey Baronets in the Baronetage of the United Kingdom Justices of the Supreme Court of Hong Kong Havilland Knights Bachelor British Supreme Court for China judges People from colonial Nigeria British Hong Kong judges British expatriates in Nigeria History of Lagos 19th-century English lawyers Sultanate of Zanzibar judges British expatriates in the Ottoman Empire

Early life

Judicial appointments

Return to Guernsey

De Sausmarez Baronetcy

Further reading

References