Sir Ralph Brian Gibson (17 October 1922 – 30 October 2003) was a British barrister,

Lord Justice of Appeal A Lord Justice of Appeal or Lady Justice of Appeal is a judge of the Court of Appeal of England and Wales, the court that hears appeals from the High Court of Justice, the Crown Court and other courts and tribunals. A Lord (or Lady) Justice ...

of the

Court of Appeal of England and Wales The Court of Appeal (formally "His Majesty's Court of Appeal in England", commonly cited as "CA", "EWCA" or "CoA") is the highest court within the Courts of England and Wales#Senior Courts of England and Wales, Senior Courts of England and Wal ...

, and Chairman of the

Law Commission A law commission, law reform commission, or law revision commission is an independent body set up by a government to conduct law reform; that is, to consider the state of laws in a jurisdiction and make recommendations or proposals for legal chang ...

Education and early years

Gibson was educated at

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

and graduated from

Brasenose College, Oxford Brasenose College (BNC) is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. It began as Brasenose Hall in the 13th century, before being founded as a college in 1509. The library and chapel were added in the mi ...

. His studies at Oxford were interrupted by

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, during which he served in the 1st King's Dragoon Guards in

North Africa North Africa, or Northern Africa is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region, and it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of Mauritania in ...

as an armoured car driver and instructor, and the

Transjordan Frontier Force The Trans-Jordan Frontier Force was formed on 1 April 1926, to replace the disbanded British Gendarmerie. It was a creation of the British High Commissioner for Palestine whose intention was that the Force should defend Trans-Jordan's northe ...

. At Oxford he became a close personal friend of

Tony Benn Anthony Neil Wedgwood Benn (3 April 1925 – 14 March 2014), known between 1960 and 1963 as Viscount Stansgate, was a British politician, writer and diarist who served as a Cabinet of the United Kingdom, Cabinet minister in the 1960s and 1970s. ...

. In 1949 he was best man at Benn's wedding. After Oxford he spent a year at the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...

as a teaching fellow, where he met and married Ann Ruether, a Chicago native who was part of the University faculty.

Career

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 ...

by the

Middle Temple The Honourable Society of the Middle Temple, commonly known simply as Middle Temple, is one of the four Inns of Court exclusively entitled to call their members to the English Bar as barristers, the others being the Inner Temple, Gray's Inn an ...

in 1948, and

took silk 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 or ...

in 1968. He was appointed chairman of the Law Commission from 1981 to 1985, after stepping down from that role was appointed as a Lord Justice of Appeal for a period of nine years after that. As a barrister, his obituary recorded that he was noted for his "rapid wit and rigorous research". He was also noted as "an open-minded and sympathetic judge". He reportedly once gave a robber a suspended sentence after being told that the defendant had donated a kidney to save his sister's life. As a Law Commissioner one of his notable contributions to English law was the Law Commission's proposals which led to "clean break" divorces.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gibson, Ralph Alumni of Brasenose College, Oxford British barristers Knights Bachelor Lords Justices of Appeal Members of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom Members of the Middle Temple People educated at Charterhouse School 1922 births 2003 deaths British Army personnel of World War II