{{Short description|English barrister and politician}} {{Use dmy dates|date=August 2022}} {{Use British English|date=June 2012}} {{Infobox officeholder | honorific_prefix = The Right Honourable | name = The Lord Shawcross | honorific_suffix = {{post-nominals|country=GBR|size=100%|GBE|PC|QC}} | image = Hartley William Shawcross, Baron Shawcross.png | caption = Shawcross being interviewed in 1954 | office = President of the Board of Trade | prime_minister = Clement Attlee | term_start = 24 April 1951 | term_end = 26 October 1951 | predecessor = Harold Wilson | successor = Peter Thorneycroft | office2 = Attorney General for England and Wales | prime_minister2 = Clement Attlee | term_start2 = 4 August 1945 | term_end2 = 24 April 1951 | predecessor2 = Sir David Maxwell Fyfe | successor2 = Sir Frank Soskice | office3 = Member of Parliament <br> for St Helens | term_start3 = 5 July 1945 | term_end3 = May 1958 | predecessor3 = William Albert Robinson | successor3 = Leslie Spriggs | office4 = Member of the House of Lords | status4 = Lord Temporal | term_label4 = Life peerage | term_start4 = 14 February 1959 | term_end4 = 10 July 2003 | birth_name = Hartley William Shawcross | birth_date = {{birth date|1902|2|4|df=yes}} | birth_place = Giessen, Grand Duchy of Hesse, German Empire | death_date = {{death date and age|2003|7|10|1902|2|4|df=yes}} | death_place = Cowbeech, East Sussex, England | party = Labour (before 1959) | other_party = Crossbencher (1959–2003) | spouse = {{Plainlist}} * {{Marriage|Alberta Rosita Shyvers|1924|1943|end=died<!--by suicide-->}} * {{Marriage|Joan Winifred Mather|1944|1974|end=died<!--by misadventure-->}} * {{Marriage|Susanne Monique Huiskamp<br>|1997}} {{endplainlist}} | children = 3 (by Mather; including William) | education = Dulwich College | alma_mater = {{ubl|London School of Economics|University of Geneva}} | awards = Knight Bachelor (1945) }}
'''Hartley William Shawcross, Baron Shawcross''', {{post-nominals|country=GBR|size=100%|sep=,|GBE|PC|QC}} (4 February 1902 – 10 July 2003), known from 1945 to 1959 as '''Sir Hartley Shawcross''', was an English barrister and Labour politician who served as the lead British prosecutor at the Nuremberg War Crimes tribunal. He also served as Britain's principal delegate to the United Nations immediately after the Second World War and as Attorney General for England and Wales.
== Early life == Hartley William Shawcross was born in Giessen, Germany, elder son of British parents, John Shawcross, MA (Oxon) (1871–1966) and Hilda Constance (died 1942), daughter of G. Asser.<ref name="Burke 1999">Burke's Peerage and Baronetage, 106th edition, Charles Mosley, Burke's Peerage Ltd, 1999, p. 2594</ref> At this time, his father was teaching English at Giessen University. His younger brother, Christopher (1905–1973), was a barrister and Labour party politician.<ref name="Burke 1999"/> Shawcross attended Dulwich College, the London School of Economics and the University of Geneva and read for the Bar at Gray's Inn, where he won first-class honours.<ref name="Burke 1999"/>
==Career== {{more citations needed section|date=April 2016}} [[File:Longines Chronicles with Hartley Shawcross 1954 ARC-96007.ogv|thumb|upright=1.2|Shawcross interviewed on CBS-TV's ''Longines Chronoscope'' (1954)]] During his initial career as a barrister, Shawcross was part of the legal team hired by the colliery owners at the inquiry into the Gresford Colliery disaster in 1934, Stafford Cripps in counterpart representing the miners' union.<ref>{{Citation |last1=Sir Henry Walker, CBE LlD (Commissioner) |author-link1=Henry Walker (mines inspector) | last2=John Brass, MInstCE MIMinE (Assessor) |author-link2=John Brass (colliery manager) | last3=Joseph Jones, CBE JP (Assessor) |author-link3=Joseph Jones (trade unionist) |title=Reports on the causes of and circumstances attending the explosion which occurred at Gresford Colliery, Denbigh on 22nd September, 1934 |date=January 1937 |via=Durham Mining Museum |url=http://www.dmm.org.uk/ukreport/5358-01.htm |access-date=21 September 2018}}Section B of report.</ref>
He joined the Labour Party and was Member of Parliament for St Helens, Lancashire, from 1945<ref>{{London Gazette |issue=37238 |date=24 August 1945 |page=4294}}</ref> to 1958, being appointed to be Attorney General in 1945<ref>{{London Gazette |issue=37222 |date=14 August 1945 |page=4135}}</ref> until 1951. In 1946, when debating the repeal of laws against trade unions in the House of Commons, Shawcross allegedly said "We are the masters now",<ref>This is the wording usually quoted, and is attested by eyewitness Lord Bruce in a ''New Statesman'' [http://www.newstatesman.com/200307280001 article], but it is still a matter of dispute. For full details see Wikiquote, ''Hartley Shawcross, Baron Shawcross''.</ref> a phrase that came to haunt him.
He was knighted in 1945 upon his appointment as Attorney-General<ref>{{London Gazette|issue=37243|date=28 August 1945|page=4345}}</ref> and named Chief Prosecutor for the United Kingdom at the Nuremberg trials.
=== Nuremberg Trials === Shawcross's advocacy before the Nuremberg Trial was passionate. His most famous line was: "There comes a point when a man must refuse to answer to his leader if he is also to answer to his own conscience".
He avoided the crusading{{citation needed|date=October 2017}} style of American, Soviet, and French prosecutors. Shawcross's opening speech, which lasted two days, 26 and 27 July 1946, sought to undermine any belief that the Nuremberg Trials were "victor's justice" in the sense of being revenge exacted against defeated foes. He focused on the rule of law and demonstrated that the laws that the defendants had broken, expressed in international treaties and agreements, were those to which prewar Germany had been a party. In his closing speech, he ridiculed any notion that any of the defendants could have remained ignorant of Aktion T4, extermination of thousands of Germans because they were old or mentally ill. He used the same argument in respect of millions of other people "annihilated in the gas chambers or by shooting" and maintained that each of the 22 defendants was a party to "common murder in its most ruthless forms".<ref>{{Cite news|url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article96475852|title=NAZIS LEADERS LOSING HOPE|date=1946-07-29|work=Examiner (Launceston, Tas. : 1900 – 1954)|access-date=2020-01-03|pages=1}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|url=https://avalon.law.yale.edu/imt/07-26-46.asp|title=Trial of the Major War Criminals Before the International Military Tribunal|year=1946|volume=19|pages=432–528}}</ref>
===Attorney-General and UN Factotum=== As Attorney-General, he prosecuted William Joyce ("Lord Haw-Haw") and John Amery for treason, Klaus Fuchs and Alan Nunn May for giving atomic secrets to the Soviet Union, and John George Haigh, 'the acid bath murderer'.<ref name = ODNB>{{cite ODNB|title = Shawcross, Hartley William, Baron Shawcross (1902–2003), barrister, politician, and businessman|last = Beloff|first = Michael|date = 2007|doi = 10.1093/ref:odnb/92268}}</ref>
From 1945 to 1949, he was Britain's principal delegate to the United Nations and was involved in the official adoption of the Flag of the United Nations in 1946,<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.unmultimedia.org/photo/detail.jsp?id=800/80009&key=26&query=flags&so=0&sf=date|title=United Nations Flag Approved by General Assembly's Legal Committee|website=United Nations Photo}}</ref> but he was recalled in 1948 to lead for the government's interest at the Lynskey tribunal. In 1951, he briefly served as President of the Board of Trade until the Labour government's defeat in the election of that year.<ref name = ODNB/>
Shawcross lent his name to a Parliamentary principle, in a defence of his conduct regarding an illegal strike, that the Attorney-General "is not to be put, and is not put, under pressure by his colleagues in the matter" of whether or not to establish criminal proceedings.<ref name="hsp">{{cite journal |last1=Shawcross |first1=Hartley |title=Prosecutions (Attorney-General's Responsibility) |journal=Hansard |date=29 January 1951 |volume=House of Commons Debates |issue=c681 |url=https://www.theyworkforyou.com/debates/?id=1951-01-29a.679.0}}</ref><ref name="rhhsp">{{cite news |last1=Heintzman |first1=Ralph |title=The real meaning of the SNC-Lavalin affair |url=https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-the-real-meaning-of-the-snc-lavalin-affair/ |publisher=The Globe and Mail Inc |date=16 May 2020}}</ref>
In 1951, he replaced Harold Wilson as President of the Board of Trade after Wilson and the Bevanite members of the Cabinet resigned in protest of the introduction of prescription charges for the National Health Service by Chancellor of the Exchequer Hugh Gaitskell.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Thorpe |first=Andrew |url=http://link.springer.com/10.1007/978-1-349-25305-0 |title=A History of the British Labour Party |date=1997 |publisher=Macmillan Education UK |isbn=978-0-333-56081-5 |location=London |pages=133 |language=en |doi=10.1007/978-1-349-25305-0 |ref=none}}</ref>
===Return to opposition=== Shawcross ended his law career in 1951, the same year as the defeat of the second Attlee ministry. He was expected to become a Conservative, earning him the nickname "Sir Shortly Floorcross", but instead he remained true to his Labour roots.<ref name = ODNB/>
During the committal hearing for the suspected serial killer doctor John Bodkin Adams in January 1957, he was seen dining with the defendant's suspected lover, Sir Roland Gwynne (Mayor of Eastbourne from 1929–31), and Lord Goddard, the Lord Chief Justice, at a hotel in Lewes.<ref>{{cite book|last=Cullen|first=Pamela V.|title=A Stranger in Blood: The Case Files on Dr John Bodkin Adams|location=London, UK|publisher=Elliott & Thompson|year=2006|isbn=978-1-904027-19-5}}</ref> The meeting added to concerns that the Adams trial was the subject of concerted judicial and political interference.{{citation needed|date=April 2016}}
Shawcross resigned from Parliament in 1958, saying he was tired of party politics.
===Elevation=== Shawcross was made one of Britain's first life peers on 14 February 1959 as '''Baron Shawcross''', of Friston in the County of Sussex,<ref>{{London Gazette|issue=41637|date=17 February 1959|page=1164}}</ref> and sat in the House of Lords as a crossbencher.
=== Defending press freedom === In 1961, he was appointed the chairman of the second Royal Commission on the Press. In 1967 he became one of the directors of ''The Times'' responsible for ensuring its editorial independence. He resigned on being appointed chairman of the Press Council in 1974.<ref name=TelegraphObit>{{cite news|title=Obituaries: Lord Shawcross|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1435769/Lord-Shawcross.html|access-date=17 July 2011|newspaper=The Daily Telegraph|date=11 July 2003}}</ref>
From 1974 to 1978, he was chairman of the Press Council and is described as "forthright in his condemnation both of journalists who committed excesses and of proprietors who profited from them" and as a "doughty defender of press freedom".<ref name=TelegraphObit/> In October 1974, he poured scorn on a Labour Party pamphlet that recommended the application of "internal democracy" to editorial policy, saying "This means that... there would be some sort of committee consisting at the best of a mixture of van drivers, press operators, electricians and the rest, with no doubt a few journalists, but more probably composed of trade union officials, to deal with editorial policy."<ref name=TelegraphObit />
In 1983, Shawcross chaired a Tribunal of Enquiry to handle a protest over the outcome of the 1983 British Saloon Car Championship.
=== Chancellor of the University of Sussex === From 1965 to 1985 Shawcross was Chancellor of the University of Sussex.
==Later years== In the 1974 New Year Honours, Lord Shawcross was appointed a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire (GBE).<ref>{{London Gazette|issue=46162|date=1 January 1974|page=7 |supp=y}}</ref>
Shawcross held a number of company directorships including with EMI, Rank Hovis MacDougall, Caffyns Motors Ltd, Morgan et Cie SA, and Times Newspapers, and chairman of Upjohn & Co Ltd. He had served as chairman of the International Chamber of Commerce's Commission on Unethical Practices and of Morgan Guaranty Trust Company's Internal Advisory Council.<ref name=debrett>{{cite book|editor-last=Mosley|editor-first=Charles |title=Debrett's Handbook 1982, Distinguished People in British Life|year=1982|publisher=Debrett's Peerage Limited|page=1405|isbn=0-905649-38-9}}</ref>
In the 1980s, Shawcross was sympathetic towards Margaret Thatcher and the Social Democratic Party, but never joined another political party.<ref name = ODNB/>
==Philanthropy and awards== In 1957, he was among a group of eminent British lawyers who founded JUSTICE, the human rights and law reform organisation and he became its first chairman, a position he held until 1972.<ref>{{Cite news|title=Lord Shawcross|newspaper=The Times |language=en|url=https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/lord-shawcross-qpcv873fc02|date=11 July 2003|issn=0140-0460}}</ref> He was instrumental in the foundation of the University of Sussex and served as chancellor of the university from 1965–85.{{citation needed|date=April 2016}}
He was the President of the charity Attend<ref>{{Cite web | url=http://www.attend.org.uk/about-us/people-we-honour-0/attend-vips |title = Attend VIPs | Attend}}</ref> (then National Association of Leagues of Hospital Friends) from 1962–72.
== Personal life == thumb|Lord Shawcross's gravestone – Jevington, East Sussex. Lord Shawcross was married three times. His first wife, Alberta Rosita Shyvers (m. 24 May 1924), suffered from multiple sclerosis and died by suicide on 30 December 1943.<ref name = ODNB/>
His second wife, Joan Winifred Mather (m. 21 September 1944), died in a riding accident on the Sussex Downs on 26 January 1974. They had three children: the author and historian William Shawcross, Hume Shawcross and Dr Joanna Shawcross.<ref name = ODNB/>
At the age of 95, he married Susanne Monique (née Jansen), formerly wife of Gerald B. Huiskamp,<ref>Burke's Peerage 1999, vol. 2, p. 2594</ref> on 18 April 1997 in Gibraltar. His family had opposed the marriage out of concern for Shawcross' declining abilities in old age, and had him placed under the supervision of the Court of Protection; they won a court ruling "after the humiliation of medical and psychological tests" concluded Shawcross "was incapable of rational decision", but Shawcross and his future wife eloped to Gibraltar, where the courts ruled the opposite.<ref name = ODNB/><ref>{{cite web | last1=Vat | first1=Dan van der | title=Lord Shawcross of Friston | work=The Guardian | date=11 July 2003 | url=https://www.theguardian.com/news/2003/jul/11/guardianobituaries.obituaries }}</ref> Lady Shawcross died on 2 March 2013.<ref>{{cite web|title=Peerage News: The Baroness Shawcross|url=http://peeragenews.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/the-baroness-shawcross.html|date=2013-03-06}}</ref>
Shawcross was a member of the Royal Yacht Squadron and the Royal Cornwall Yacht Club.<ref name=debrett/> From 1947 to 1960 he was the owner of ''Vanity V'', a 12-metre class racing yacht designed by William Fife to the Third International Rule, built in 1936, which he kept at his home in Cornwall.<ref name="auto">{{Cite web |title=Page on the yacht "Vanity V" |url=https://12mrclass.com/12mr-database/vanityv-k-5/ |access-date=5 February 2024 |website=Website of the International Twelve Metre Association (ITMA)|date=20 January 2020 }}</ref> A later skipper of the boat, John Crill, recalls being told that Lord Shawcross, "when the election was due in about 1951, had ''Vanity V'' repainted with a vast 'Vote Labour' banner all the way along her topsides".
Lord Shawcross died on 10 July 2003 at home at Cowbeech, East Sussex, at the age of 101 and is buried in the churchyard of St Andrew's Church, Jevington, East Sussex.<ref>{{cite web | last1=White | first1=Michael | url=https://theguardian.com/politics/2003/jul/11/uk.labour4 | title=Lord Shawcross dies at 101 | Politics | the Guardian | work=The Guardian | date=11 July 2003 }}</ref><ref>{{Cite news|url=https://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/1218017.stm|title = Nazi war crimes prosecutor dies|date = 10 July 2003}}</ref><ref>https://www.lovethesouthdowns.org.uk/places/st-andrews-jevington Retrieved 23 September 2024</ref>
==Arms== {{Infobox emblem wide |image = Hartley_Shawcross_Coat_of_Arms.svg |escutcheon = Per pale Azure and Gules on a saltire between four annulets Argent an ermine spot Sable. |crest = Upon the battlements of a tower Proper a martlet Gules holding in the beak a cross paty fitchy Or. |supporters = Dexter a lion Argent gorged with a chain Sable pendant therefrom an escutcheon also Sable charged with a balance Or sinister a griffin Sable armed and langued Azure gorged with a chain pendent therefrom a portcullis Or. |orders = Insignia, collar, and circlet of a Knight Grand Cross of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire<ref>{{cite book|title=Debrett's Peerage |date=2003 |page=1461}}</ref>}}
== References == {{reflist}}
== Bibliography == *{{cite book | author=Shawcross, H. | title=Life Sentence | year=1995 | isbn=978-0-09-474980-1 | publisher=Constable | location=London }}
== External links == * {{wikiquote-inline|Hartley Shawcross}} * {{Hansard-contribs | mr-hartley-shawcross | Hartley Shawcross }} * {{NPG name}} * [https://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/lord-shawcross-36741.html Obituary, ''The Independent'', 11 July 2003 by James Morton] * {{Internet Archive film clip|id=gov.archives.arc.96007|description="Longines Chronoscope with Sir Hartley Shawcross"}} * [https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0093z01 Appearance on Desert Island Discs (7 July 1991)] * {{PM20|FID=pe/016424}}
{{S-start}} {{s-par|uk}} {{succession box | title = Member of Parliament for St Helens | years = 1945–1958 | before = William Albert Robinson | after = Leslie Spriggs }} {{s-legal}} {{succession box | title = Attorney General for England and Wales | years = 1945–1951 | before = Sir David Maxwell Fyfe | after = Sir Frank Soskice }} {{s-off}} {{succession box | title = President of the Board of Trade | years = April–October 1951 | before = Harold Wilson | after = Peter Thorneycroft }} {{s-media}} {{succession box | title = Chairman of the Press Council | before = Edward Pearce | after = Patrick Neill | years = 1974–1978 }} {{s-hon}} {{succession box | title = Senior Privy Counsellor | years = 1988–2003 | with = The Earl of Listowel (1988–1997) | before = The Lord Balfour of Inchrye | after = The Duke of Edinburgh }} {{S-bef | before = The Lord Shackleton }} {{S-ttl | title = Senior life peer | years = 1994–2003 }} {{S-aft | after = The Lord Chalfont }} {{S-end}}
{{Presidents of the Board of Trade}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Shawcross, Hartley William}} Category:1902 births Category:2003 deaths Category:People educated at Dulwich College Category:Alumni of the London School of Economics Category:Articles containing video clips Category:Attorneys general for England and Wales Category:English King's Counsel Category:English men centenarians Category:British expatriates in Switzerland Category:Crossbench life peers Category:Knights Bachelor Category:Knights Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire Category:Labour Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies Category:Members of Gray's Inn Category:Members of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom Category:Ministers in the Attlee governments, 1945–1951 Category:Presidents of the Board of Trade Category:Prosecutors of the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg Category:20th-century King's Counsel Hartley Shawcross Category:UK MPs 1945–1950 Category:UK MPs 1950–1951 Category:UK MPs 1951–1955 Category:UK MPs 1955–1959 Category:UK MPs who were granted peerages Category:Life peers created by Elizabeth II Category:Chancellors of the University of Sussex