Sir Roger Fray Greenwood Ormrod, PC (20 October 1911 – 6 January 1992) was a British

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 ...

Biography

Ormrod was educated at

Shrewsbury School Shrewsbury School is a public school (English independent boarding school for pupils aged 13 –18) in Shrewsbury. Founded in 1552 by Edward VI by Royal Charter, it was originally a boarding school for boys; girls have been admitted into the ...

and

the Queen's College, Oxford The Queen's College is a Colleges of the University of Oxford, constituent college of the University of Oxford, England. The college was founded in 1341 by Robert de Eglesfield in honour of Philippa of Hainault. It is distinguished by its pred ...

. Although he had studied law at university, his father insisted that he train as a doctor. After serving in the

Royal Army Medical Corps The Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC) is a specialist corps in the British Army which provides medical services to all Army personnel and their families, in war and in peace. The RAMC, the Royal Army Veterinary Corps, the Royal Army Dental Corps a ...

during the

Second World War 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 ...

, he returned to legal practice, specializing in divorce cases and becoming

Queen's Counsel In the United Kingdom and in some Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth countries, a King's Counsel (Post-nominal letters, post-nominal initials KC) during the reign of a king, or Queen's Counsel (post-nominal initials QC) during the reign of ...

in 1958. In 1961 he was appointed a judge of the

Probate, Divorce and Admiralty Division The High Court of Justice in London, known properly as His Majesty's High Court of Justice in England, together with the Court of Appeal and the Crown Court, are the Senior Courts of England and Wales. Its name is abbreviated as EWHC (England ...

, and in 1974 a Lord Justice of Appeal. He was a significant figure in the development of the jurisprudence of

no-fault divorce In a no-fault divorce the dissolution of a marriage does not require a showing of wrongdoing by either party. Laws providing for no-fault divorce allow a family court to grant a divorce in response to a petition by either party of the marriage w ...

in the English courts. His best known finding came in the divorce case of ''

Corbett v Corbett ''Corbett v Corbett (otherwise Ashley)'' is a 1970 family law divorce case heard between November and December 1969 by the High Court of England and Wales in which Arthur Corbett sought annulment of his marriage to April Ashley. Corbett (the h ...

'' (1971), in which the wife was a male-to-female transsexual. Ormrod held that, for the purpose of marriage, sex was to be legally defined by three factors that he called 'biological' – namely chromosomal, gonadal and genital. Any 'operative intervention' was to be ignored, as were any 'psychological factors' (in that case identified with 'transsexualism'). He said: On the basis of the medical evidence, Ormrod held that the wife was not a woman for the purposes of marriage but a biological male, and had been so since birth. Accordingly, as the relationship called marriage "is and always has been recognised as the union of man and woman", the marriage was

void Void may refer to: Science, engineering, and technology * Void (astronomy), the spaces between galaxy filaments that contain no galaxies * Void (composites), a pore that remains unoccupied in a composite material * Void, synonym for vacuum, a s ...

ab initio ''Ab initio'' ( ) is a Latin term meaning "from the beginning" and is derived from the Latin ''ab'' ("from") + ''initio'', ablative singular of ''initium'' ("beginning"). Etymology Circa 1600, from Latin, literally "from the beginning", from ab ...

''. Ormrod was for many years the chairman of the very successful Notting Hill Housing Trust a charitable housing association then operating mostly in RBK&C and the LB Hammersmith and Fulham.

Sources

*Obituary in ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (fou ...

'', 9 January 1992.

References

Lords Justices of Appeal Members of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom 1911 births 1992 deaths Alumni of The Queen's College, Oxford Royal Army Medical Corps officers British Army personnel of World War II Knights Bachelor Probate, Divorce and Admiralty Division judges 20th-century British medical doctors {{UK-law-bio-stub