Ronald Burley

Early in 1948 Hawkins, the senior clerk, moved upstairs to clerk the libel set of chambers on the first floor (of which David Hirst QC would become head). Devlin invited the junior clerk, Ronald Burley, to succeed Hawkins.

Burley left school at fifteen with few formal qualifications. He went into the Temple as an office boy in the chambers of DF Levy in 1938 where one of his jobs was to light the fires in the grates. He then became Ronald Burley a sales clerk at Shell Mex where he came under the influence of an older employee who tried to recruit him into the communist party. Burley briefly flirted with communism but rapidly thought better of it, an experience possibly responsible for his loathing of the left in later life. He volunteered for the RAF at the age of eighteen, trained as an officer pilot, flew Wellington bombers, mostly in South Africa, and was demobbed at the end of 1946 as Flight Lt Burley when he became junior clerk to Hawkins.

Thus it was that Burley became senior clerk at the age of twenty-five, a position he occupied for more than forty years.

Devlin and Pearson went on to have parallel judicial careers. Pearson was six years older. Devlin took silk in 1945, Pearson in 1949. Both became Head of Chambers of 1 Brick Court. Both would become judges (Devlin in 1948 and Pearson in 1951). Both would be President of the Restrictive Practices Court (Devlin in 1958 was its first President, Pearson in 1960). Devlin was appointed to the Court of Appeal in 1960, Pearson in 1961. Devlin was appointed to the House of Lords in 1961, Pearson in 1965 after Devlin’s retirement from the House of Lords in 1964.

As a puisne judge, Devlin presided over the trial of Dr John Bodkin Adams, a doctor accused and acquitted of hastening the demise of his

patients. Devlin’s 1985 book about the trial caused great controversy as a former judge writing about a trial over which he had presided. Devlin had a claim to be appointed Lord Chief Justice on Lord Goddard’s retirement in 1958 but neither Macmillan (Prime Minister) nor Manningham-Buller (Attorney-General, known by the nickname “Sir Bullying Manner”46 whose conduct of the prosecution of Bodkin Adams was subject to withering criticism from Devlin in the book) were admirers, and the post went to Hubert Parker instead. In the House of Lords Devlin often found himself in a minority of two with Lord Denning, representing the more liberal point of view, although Devlin’s judgments have in many ways stood the test of time better than those of Denning, who became Master of the Rolls in 1962. And he did not enjoy the diet, which then involved numerous revenue cases. Devlin was only fifty-eight when he retired as a judge. He was Chairman of the Press Council 1964–69 and High Steward of Cambridge University 1966–91. He wrote books on law and history and the interaction of law with moral philosophy. He died in 1992.

Pearson’s left-leaning political views made him an ideal appointee for commissions and inquiries under the Wilson government and he chaired inquiries following the seamen’s strike of 1966, the civil air transport industry dispute of 1967–68, the British Steel dispute of 1968 and the docks strike of 1970. He chaired the Royal Commission on Civil Liability and Personal Injury between 1973 and 1978, retiring as a judge in 1974. He died in 1980. When he became a judge, he gave Burley an Omega watch engraved: “To Burley with my thanks, Colin Pearson”.

46 Later Lord Chancellor as Viscount Dilhorne