William Finlay, 2nd Viscount Finlay, (15 October 1875 – 30 June 1945) was a British judge and peer who served as a

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) Just ...

from 1938 to 1945. The son of Lord Chancellor Finlay, William Finlay was educated at

Eton Eton most commonly refers to Eton College, a public school in Eton, Berkshire, England. Eton may also refer to: Places *Eton, Berkshire, a town in Berkshire, England *Eton, Georgia, a town in the United States *Éton, a commune in the Meuse depa ...

and

Trinity College, Cambridge Trinity College is a Colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Founded in 1546 by King Henry VIII, Trinity is one of the largest Cambridge colleges, with the largest financial endowment of any ...

, before being called to the

English bar Barristers in England and Wales are one of the two main categories of lawyer in England and Wales, the other being solicitors. Barristers have traditionally had the role of handling cases for representation in court, both defence and prosecutio ...

in 1901. He became a

King's Counsel A King's Counsel (Post-nominal letters, post-nominal initials KC) is a senior lawyer appointed by the monarch (or their Viceroy, viceregal representative) of some Commonwealth realms as a "Counsel learned in the law". When the reigning monarc ...

in 1914, a High Court judge in 1924, and a

in 1938. Finlay's rapid rise to professional prominence was accompanied by accusations of nepotism, though his competence was not questioned. In 1929, he inherited his father's peerages, becoming the second and last Viscount Finlay. In addition to his legal work, Finlay also played an important role in

economic warfare Economic warfare or economic war is an economic strategy used by belligerent states with the goal of weakening the economy of other states. This is primarily achieved by the use of economic blockades. Ravaging the crops of the enemy is a classic ...

against Germany during both World Wars, and was responsible for two influential, if much criticised, reports on the English

legal aid Legal aid is the provision of assistance to people who are unable to afford legal representation and access to the court system. Legal aid is regarded as central in providing access to justice by ensuring equality before the law, the right ...

system. After the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, Finlay was involved in the prosecution of German war crimes, serving as the British representative to the

United Nations War Crimes Commission The United Nations War Crimes Commission (UNWCC), initially the United Nations Commission for the Investigation of War Crimes, was a United Nations body that aided the prosecution of war crimes committed by Nazi Germany and other Axis powers duri ...

, and fought against British official indifference and obstruction. The work took a heavy toll on his health, leading to his premature death in 1945.

Early life and career

Finlay was born on 15 October 1875 in London, the son of the Scottish barrister

Robert Finlay Robert Bannatyne Finlay, 1st Viscount Finlay, (11 July 1842 – 9 March 1929), known as Sir Robert Finlay from 1895 to 1916, was a British barrister and politician who was Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain from 1916 to 1919. Backgrou ...

and of Mary Finlay, ''née'' Innes, daughter of

Cosmo Innes Cosmo Nelson Innes FRSE (9 September 1798 – 31 July 1874) was a Scottish advocate, judge, historian and antiquary. He served as Advocate-Depute, Sheriff of Elginshire, and Principal Clerk of Session. He was a skilled decipherer of ancient ...

. Robert Finlay, later the first Viscount Finlay, later served as

Lord Chancellor The Lord Chancellor, formally titled Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain, is a senior minister of the Crown within the Government of the United Kingdom. The lord chancellor is the minister of justice for England and Wales and the highest-ra ...

between 1916 and 1919 in

Lloyd George David Lloyd George, 1st Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor (17 January 1863 – 26 March 1945) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1916 to 1922. A Liberal Party (United Kingdom), Liberal Party politician from Wales, he was known for leadi ...

's government. William Finlay was educated at

and

, where he placed third division of the third class in Part I of the classical

tripos TRIPOS (''TRIvial Portable Operating System'') is a computer operating system. Development started in 1976 at the Computer Laboratory of Cambridge University and it was headed by Dr. Martin Richards. The first version appeared in January 1978 a ...

in 1897. He was president of the

Cambridge Union The Cambridge Union Society, also known as the Cambridge Union, is a historic debating and free speech society in Cambridge, England, and the largest society in the University of Cambridge. The society was founded in 1815 making it the oldest ...

Easter term Easter term is the summer term at the University of Cambridge, University of Wales, Lampeter, University of Durham, and formerly University of Newcastle upon Tyne (before 2004 Finlay 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 entitled to Call to the bar, call their members to the English Bar as barristers, the others being the Inner Temple (with whi ...

in 1901 and joined the

Northern Circuit The Northern Circuit is a circuit of the General Council of the Bar and English judiciary. The Northern Circuit stretches from Carlisle in Cumberland at its northernmost point, running through Lakeland to the port of Whitehaven in the West, ...

. In 1905, he was appointed junior counsel to the Board of Inland Revenue by his father, in one of his last official acts as

Attorney-General In most common law jurisdictions, the attorney general (: attorneys general) or attorney-general (AG or Atty.-Gen) is the main legal advisor to the government. In some jurisdictions, attorneys general also have executive responsibility for law enf ...

. The choice caused some controversy, given his father's position and his very short standing at the bar. In contrast, his predecessor, Sidney Rowlatt, had fourteen years' seniority at the bar when he was appointed. Criticising the appointment, the ''Law Times'' wrote:

Of this gentleman's ability and qualifications for this important and not unrenumerative post we confess our entire ignorance—a lack of knowledge that is shared by the Profession generally. But we do contend that to appoint a barrister of four years and six months' standing to a position of this description can only be described as a job.

However, there was no criticism of the way in which he carried out the duties of the post, which he occupied until 1914. He was appointed a

the same year. During

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

, Finlay served as chairman of the Contraband Committee in 1916, vice-chairman of the Allied Blockade Committee from 1917 to 1919, and was a temporary adviser to 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 * United ...

for the

Paris Peace Conference Agreements and declarations resulting from meetings in Paris include: Listed by name Paris Accords may refer to: * Paris Accords, the agreements reached at the end of the London and Paris Conferences in 1954 concerning the post-war status of Germ ...

. For his wartime service, Finlay was appointed a

Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding valuable service in a wide range of useful activities. It comprises five classes of awards across both civil and military divisions, the most senior two o ...

(KBE) in 1920. He was also appointed to the

Légion d'honneur The National Order of the Legion of Honour ( ), formerly the Imperial Order of the Legion of Honour (), is the highest and most prestigious French national order of merit, both military and Civil society, civil. Currently consisting of five cl ...

and was made an Officer of the

Order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus The Order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus () (abbreviated OSSML) is a Roman Catholic dynastic order of knighthood bestowed by the royal House of Savoy. It is the second-oldest order of knighthood in the world, tracing its lineage to AD 1098, a ...

. After the war, Finlay returned to the bar, often appearing in front of the

Judicial Committee of the Privy Council The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (JCPC) is the highest court of appeal for the Crown Dependencies, the British Overseas Territories, some Commonwealth countries and a few institutions in the United Kingdom. Established on 14 August ...

. On at least one occasion he appeared in the

House of Lords The House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the lower house, the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster in London, England. One of the oldest ext ...

before his father, who was sitting as a judge. He served as

Commissioner of Assize The assizes (), or courts of assize, were periodic courts held around England and Wales until 1972, when together with the quarter sessions they were abolished by the Courts Act 1971 and replaced by a single permanent Crown Court. The assizes ex ...

for the

in 1921 and for the Midland and Oxford Circuits in 1922. Finlay also served as the British representative on the International Blockade Commission in 1920–21. He was elected a

bencher A bencher or Master of the Bench is a senior member of an Inn of Court in England and Wales or the Inns of Court in Northern Ireland, or the Honorable Society of King's Inns in Ireland. Benchers hold office for life once elected. A bencher c ...

of the Middle Temple in November 1924.

High Court judge

In 1924, Parliament passed resolutions under the Supreme Court of Judicature Act 1910 to authorise the appointment of two additional High Court judges to deal with the arrears of cases in the

King's Bench Division The King's Bench Division (or Queen's Bench Division when the monarch is female) of the High Court of Justice deals with a wide range of common law cases and has supervisory responsibility over certain lower courts. It hears appeals on point ...

. Finlay was duly appointed to one of the new positions in December 1924. The appointment again caused some controversy, as his father was still judicially active. The ''Law Times'' remarked that:

Sir William Finlay ... must be accounted as a singularly fortunate man ... after but twenty-three years at the Bar, for no apparent Professional reason, he is passed over the heads of those who have undoubted prior claims for consideration and whose appointment would have strengthened the King's Bench.

However, there was subsequently little complaint about the way in which he carried out his judicial duties. On the bench, Finlay tried the

revenue In accounting, revenue is the total amount of income generated by the sale of product (business), goods and services related to the primary operations of a business. Commercial revenue may also be referred to as sales or as turnover. Some compan ...

list, which he inherited from Mr Justice Rowlatt, and presided over a number of notable criminal trials. In 1925, he tried Norman Thorne for murder. His summing-up speech, which singled out the forensic evidence of

Sir Bernard Spilsbury Sir Bernard Henry Spilsbury (16 May 1877 – 17 December 1947) was an English pathologist. His cases include Hawley Crippen, the Seddon case, the Major Armstrong poisoning, the "Brides in the Bath" murders by George Joseph Smith, the Crumb ...

for the prosecution over those of several defence witnesses, proved to be controversial. In 1932, he tried 31 Dartmoor prison rioters over sixteen days, taking three hours to pronounce sentence. In 1935, he tried Reginald Woolmington (of ''

Woolmington v DPP ''Woolmington v DPP'' 935AC 462 is a landmark House of Lords case, where the presumption of innocence was re-consolidated (for application across the Commonwealth). In criminal law the case identifies the metaphorical "golden thread" running thr ...

'' fame) for murder; the jury was unable to come to a verdict, and Woolmington was tried again before Mr Justice Rigby Swift. In 1938, he tried the 17-year-old Owen Meakin for the murder of his father.

Norman Birkett William Norman Birkett, 1st Baron Birkett, (6 September 1883 – 10 February 1962), was a British barrister, judge, politician and preacher who served as the deputy British judge during the Nuremberg Trials. Birkett received his education at ...

KC convinced the jury to return a verdict of manslaughters by referring to the father's behaviour towards his family, and Finlay sentenced Meakin to a short term of twelve months' imprisonment. In 1925, Finlay was appointed to chair the Committee on Legal Aid for the Poor, charged with examining English legal aid arrangements. The Committee's two reports, on criminal legal aid (1926) and civil legal aid outside of the High Court (1928) concluded that no major reform of the English

system was necessary, a conclusion much criticised later. Memorably, rejecting a submission that a system of "legal hospitals" should be established, the second report stated that "It is manifestly in the interests of the State that its citizens should be healthy, not that they should be litigious." Upon the death of his father in 1929 Finlay succeeded as the second Viscount Finlay. In 1937, he became ''ex officio'' Railway and Canal Commissioner for England and chairman of

Wiltshire Wiltshire (; abbreviated to Wilts) is a ceremonial county in South West England. It borders Gloucestershire to the north, Oxfordshire to the north-east, Berkshire to the east, Hampshire to the south-east, Dorset to the south, and Somerset to ...

Quarter session The courts of quarter sessions or quarter sessions were local courts that were traditionally held at four set times each year in the Kingdom of England from 1388; they were extended to Wales following the Laws in Wales Act 1535. Scotland establ ...

Court of Appeal and Second World War

The Supreme Court of Judicature (Amendment) Act 1938 authorised the appointment of three additional

Lords Justices 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) Justic ...

to create a permanent third division of the

Court of Appeal An appellate court, commonly called a court of appeal(s), appeal court, court of second instance or second instance court, is any court of law that is empowered to Hearing (law), hear a Legal case, case upon appeal from a trial court or other ...

. In October 1938, Finlay was appointed as one of the three new Lords Justices and was sworn of the Privy Council the following month. During the

, he was seconded from the Court of Appeal to chair the Contraband Committee of the

Ministry of Economic Warfare The Minister of Economic Warfare was a British government position which existed during the Second World War. The minister was in charge of the Special Operations Executive and the Ministry of Economic Warfare. Ministers of Economic Warfare, 1939 ...

, an appointment which reflected his work during the First World War. In 1943,

Lord Selborne Earl of Selborne, in the County of Southampton, is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created in 1882 for the lawyer and Liberal politician Roundell Palmer, 1st Baron Selborne, along with the subsidiary title of Viscount Wo ...

, the Minister of Economic Warfare, commissioner Finlay to produce a report on the future of the ministry; Finlay recommend that it should be disbanded after the end of the war in Europe, but that provision should be made elsewhere within the government for economic warfare planning and economic intelligence. Finlay was promoted to be a

Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding valuable service in a wide range of useful activities. It comprises five classes of awards across both civil and military divisions, the most senior two o ...

(GBE) in the 1945 New Year honours list. The same year, he was chosen as the British representative to the

, in succession to Sir Cecil Hurst, whose health had broken down and who was frustrated at the British government's failure to respond to the Commission's proposals for the prosecution of war criminals. The relationship between the Commission and the British government was at a low point: there was a general feeling that the British were uninterested in the Commission's work, and the Norwegian government had withdrawn from the Commission out of frustration. Finlay was proposed as a candidate by Sir William Malkin, the Foreign Office Legal Adviser, who wanted to appoint a prominent figure to show that the British government attached importance to the Commission's work. Finlay was also appointed chairman of a British war crimes inter-departmental committee. It was pointed out in

Whitehall Whitehall is a road and area in the City of Westminster, Central London, England. The road forms the first part of the A roads in Zone 3 of the Great Britain numbering scheme, A3212 road from Trafalgar Square to Chelsea, London, Chelsea. It ...

that Finlay "would be personally responsible for making the British machine work and could not therefore possibly accuse the Foreign Office or HMG generally for unnecessary delays, following the example of Sir Cecil Hurst." Finlay was met with obstruction from certain parts of the government. For instance, a proposal to have German

prisoners of war A prisoner of war (POW) is a person held captive by a belligerent power during or immediately after an armed conflict. The earliest recorded usage of the phrase "prisoner of war" dates back to 1610. Belligerents hold prisoners of war for a ...

interrogated at the

London Cage The London Cage was an MI19 prisoner-of-war facility during and after the Second World War to mainly interrogate captured Germans, including SS personnel and members of the Nazi Party. The unit, which was located within numbers 6, 7 and 8 Ke ...

on war crimes was vetoed by Patrick Dean at the

on the grounds that to ask them anything more than their name, rank, and number would breach the

Geneva Conventions upright=1.15, The original document in single pages, 1864 The Geneva Conventions are international humanitarian laws consisting of four treaties and three additional protocols that establish international legal standards for humanitarian t ...

. Finlay also complained that the

British Army The British Army is the principal Army, land warfare force of the United Kingdom. the British Army comprises 73,847 regular full-time personnel, 4,127 Brigade of Gurkhas, Gurkhas, 25,742 Army Reserve (United Kingdom), volunteer reserve perso ...

was so disorganised that it had allowed important evidence of war crimes to be lost. Finlay's health was affected by a trip to

Buchenwald concentration camp Buchenwald (; 'beech forest') was a German Nazi concentration camp established on Ettersberg hill near Weimar, Nazi Germany, Germany, in July 1937. It was one of the first and the largest of the concentration camps within the Altreich (pre-1938 ...

with the UN War Crimes Commission in April 1945. He continued to work after his return, but "admitted to friends that he never really felt well again". He died on 30 June 1945, in a nursing home in

Redhill, Surrey Redhill () is a town status in the United Kingdom, town in the borough of Reigate and Banstead within the county of Surrey, England. The town, which adjoins the town of Reigate to the west, is due south of London Borough of Croydon, Croydon in ...

, whereupon his peerages became extinct. He had been widely expected to be the British choice for appointment to the new

International Court of Justice The International Court of Justice (ICJ; , CIJ), or colloquially the World Court, is the only international court that Adjudication, adjudicates general disputes between nations, and gives advisory opinions on International law, internation ...

Character and assessment

Writing in the ''

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography The ''Dictionary of National Biography'' (''DNB'') is a standard work of reference on notable figures from History of the British Isles, British history, published since 1885. The updated ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' (''ODNB'') ...

'', G. R. Rubin described Finlay as "competent but not outstanding" both at the bar and on the bench, although he praised Finlay for his courage and zeal in his drive to make governments pursue German war criminals in the face of official obstruction and disinterest. Finlay's judicial demeanour was described as dignified and courteous, if slightly pompous. In private he was said to be jovial and an engaging host. Finlay shared his father's interest in literature, and was described by ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British Newspaper#Daily, daily Newspaper#National, national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its modern name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its si ...

'' as "like his father...a scholar, with a vein of old-world culture". As Reader of the Middle Temple in 1933 he delivered a noted reading on "Law and Literature".

Family

In 1903, Finlay married Beatrice Marion Hall (1880–1942), daughter of Edward Kirkpatrick Hall. They had one daughter, the Hon Rosalind Mary Finlay (1914–2002), who married

Vice-Admiral Vice admiral is a senior naval flag officer rank, usually equivalent to lieutenant general and air marshal. A vice admiral is typically senior to a rear admiral and junior to an admiral. Australia In the Royal Australian Navy, the rank of vic ...

Sir John Hayes in 1939.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Finlay, William, 2nd Viscount Finlay 1875 births 1945 deaths Presidents of the Cambridge Union People educated at Eton College Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge Knights Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire Queen's Bench Division judges Lord justices of appeal Members of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom British King's Counsel British recipients of the Legion of Honour Officers of the Order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus Members of the Middle Temple Viscounts in the Peerage of the United Kingdom 20th-century King's Counsel 20th-century English judges