Sir Kenneth Owen Roberts-Wray, GCMG, QC (6 June 1899 – 29 August 1983) was a British lawyer and civil servant. An authority on Commonwealth and colonial law, he was Legal Adviser to the Commonwealth Relations Office (

Dominions Office The position of Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs was a British cabinet-level position created in 1925 responsible for British relations with the Dominions – Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Newfoundland, and the Irish Fre ...

until 1947) and the

Colonial Office The Colonial Office was a government department of the Kingdom of Great Britain and later of the United Kingdom, first created to deal with the colonial affairs of British North America but required also to oversee the increasing number of c ...

from 1945 to 1960.

Biography

Kenneth Roberts-Wray was the son of Captain Thomas Henry Roberts-Wray, CB, OBE, VD, RNVR, sometime Aide-de-Camp to King

George V George V (George Frederick Ernest Albert; 3 June 1865 – 20 January 1936) was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Emperor of India, from 6 May 1910 until his death in 1936. Born during the reign of his grandmother ...

, and of Florence Grace Roberts-Wray. He was educated at University Tutorial College,

Royal Military Academy, Woolwich The Royal Military Academy (RMA) at Woolwich, in south-east London, was a British Army military academy for the training of commissioned officers of the Royal Artillery and Royal Engineers. It later also trained officers of the Royal Corps of S ...

, and

Merton College, Oxford Merton College (in full: The House or College of Scholars of Merton in the University of Oxford) is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. Its foundation can be traced back to the 1260s when Walter de Merton, ...

, where he took first-class honours in Jurisprudence. During the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

, Roberts-Wray was commissioned into the

Royal Artillery The Royal Regiment of Artillery, commonly referred to as the Royal Artillery (RA) and colloquially known as "The Gunners", is one of two regiments that make up the artillery arm of the British Army. The Royal Regiment of Artillery comprises t ...

as a

second lieutenant Second lieutenant is a junior commissioned officer military rank in many armed forces, comparable to NATO OF-1 rank. Australia The rank of second lieutenant existed in the military forces of the Australian colonies and Australian Army unt ...

in 1918, promoted to

lieutenant A lieutenant ( , ; abbreviated Lt., Lt, LT, Lieut and similar) is a commissioned officer rank in the armed forces of many nations. The meaning of lieutenant differs in different militaries (see comparative military ranks), but it is often ...

in 1919, and retired from the Army because of wounds in 1920. He 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 1924, receiving the Certificate of Honour at the Bar examinations. Joining the

Civil Service The civil service is a collective term for a sector of government composed mainly of career civil servants hired on professional merit rather than appointed or elected, whose institutional tenure typically survives transitions of political leaders ...

in 1926, he joined the Ministry of Health as a Professional Legal Clerk, before being promoted Assistant Chief Clerk in 1929. He transferred to the

and the

in 1931 as Second Assistant Legal Adviser, and was promoted to Assistant Legal Adviser in 1943, and Legal Adviser in 1945. During his tenure, he took part in numerous pre-independence constitutional conferences as legal adviser, the last one being the constitutional conference leading to the independence of Nigeria in 1960. In retirement, Roberts-Wray was the author of ''Commonwealth and Colonial Law'' (Stevens, 1966), a seminal work in that area. From January to June 1969, he served as Acting Attorney-General of Gibraltar.

Family

Roberts-Wray firstly married in 1927 Joan Tremayne Waring (died 1961); they had three sons. After he death, he married secondly, in 1965, Lady (Mary Howard) Williams, widow of Sir Ernest Williams, JP.

Honours

Roberts-Wray was appointed a Companion of the

Order of St Michael and St George The Most Distinguished Order of Saint Michael and Saint George is a British order of chivalry founded on 28 April 1818 by George IV, Prince of Wales, while he was acting as prince regent for his father, King George III. It is named in honour ...

in 1946, promoted Knight Commander in 1949, and Knight Grand Cross in 1960. In 1959, he was appointed a

Queen's Counsel In the United Kingdom and in some Commonwealth countries, a King's Counsel (post-nominal initials KC) during the reign of a king, or Queen's Counsel (post-nominal initials QC) during the reign of a queen, is a lawyer (usually a barrister o ...

. He received an honorary DCL from the University of Oxford in 1967 and an honorary LLD from the University of Birmingham in 1968.

References

* G. J. Zellick, "Sir Kenneth Roberts-Wray", ''The Times'', 3 September 1983, p. 8 * Sir James McPetrie, "Sir Kenneth Roberts-Wray", ''The Times'', 14 September 1983, p. 12.
Roberts-Wray, Sir Kenneth Owen, (6 June 1899–29 Aug. 1983), QC 1959; Legal Adviser, Commonwealth Relations Office (Dominions Office until 1947) and Colonial Office, 1945–60, retired
{{DEFAULTSORT:Roberts-Wray, Kenneth 1899 births 1983 deaths British legal writers British barristers English King's Counsel 20th-century King's Counsel Graduates of the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich Alumni of Merton College, Oxford British Army personnel of World War I Royal Artillery officers Civil servants in the Ministry of Health (United Kingdom) 20th-century British civil servants Knights Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George Civil servants in the Colonial Office Civil servants in the Commonwealth Relations Office