William Jowitt KC, 1923

Accounts of Jowitt pay tribute to his magnificent appearance,3 which is apparent from the famous portrait (see frontispiece) by Ambrose McEvoy, painted when Jowitt was 23. He had a superbly sonorous voice that an actor would have been proud of. When he subsequently entered the House of Commons, he was regarded as “the handsomest man in the House”,4 whilst his intellectual abilities were seen as superior to the courtroom masters of the day, Norman Birkett and Patrick Hastings.

From 1925 (when RA Wright KC, later Lord Wright, went on the bench) Jowitt was the undisputed head of the Commercial bar.5 He attracted attention for his subdued and charming manner, at a time when barristers were more inclined to browbeat witnesses. Jowitt’s standing among solicitors was undoubted. Those who retained him were impressed by the painstaking attention which he paid to his briefs and the courtesy with which he considered his client’s suggestions in conference.6

The clerk was Edward Cheeseman. He was not a popular William Jowitt KC, 1923 man. He was “a little man with a round face and spectacles and a chirpy manner when he was sober”.7 Cheeseman seems to have paid little regard to members of chambers other than Jowitt himself. Thus Asquith was required to provide the customary guarantee of a minimum in clerks’ fees in a sum much higher

3 RFV Heuston, Lives of the Lord Chancellors Vol 2 (1987) Clarendon Press (“Heuston”) p69 4 Together with one other: Ibid p69 5 Ibid p70 6 Ibid p70 7 Patrick Devlin, Taken at the Flood (1996) Taverner Publication (“Devlin”) p153

than he had anticipated, but was assured by Cheeseman that he was in a position to put a good deal of work his way. After a couple of barren years Asquith reminded Cheeseman of this, upon which Cheeseman produced a brief apparently from a solicitor called Iohnson which caused confusion because it transpired that the only typewriter in the office had lost its capital “J”.8

Neither Asquith nor Somervell stayed in chambers very long; both left in 1926, probably because of Cheeseman. Like Jowitt, Somervell took silk (in 1929), also went into politics subsequently and ironically Jowitt served under him when Somervell was Attorney General and Jowitt Solicitor General in 1940.

Jowitt’s life at the bar and the fortunes of 1 Brick Court changed suddenly in 1929. In the general election on 30th May he was elected to Parliament as a Liberal party candidate. That election brought Ramsay MacDonald’s second Labour government into power. MacDonald had at that time little in the way of legal talent in his parliamentary party and had been friends with Jowitt for some years. He invited Jowitt to become his Attorney General and, on 6th June 1929, Jowitt crossed the floor and became the Labour Attorney General. His acceptance of office aroused considerable public criticism, some of it from his own profession. But he was not a man much moved by public opinion. According to the parliamentary convention of the time he resigned his seat, stood again at the by-election on 31st July and was re-elected as a Labour member with a significantly increased majority.

The practice was that a silk, when he becomes a law officer, moves into his rooms in the Law Courts taking his clerk with him. There were echoes of this practice 60 years later when Nicolas Lyell asked Ronald Burley to be his clerk when he became Attorney General.9 Jowitt took his clerk Cheeseman. The chambers at 1 Brick Court went into limbo during Jowitt’s period of office.

The tenure of Jowitt (now Sir William) as Attorney General was not without controversy. Paid for the briefs he undertook in that capacity on behalf of the Crown, in his 21 months in post he earned the enormous

8 Ibid p154 9 See p80

sum of £39,218 in fees in addition to his salary of £5,000.10 Apart from his London house in Upper Brook Street he had a 250 acre farm, Budd’s Farm, overlooking Romney Marsh near Rye, East Sussex, which at one point had ten gardeners. He owned an art collection which included Matisse and Sickert.

Although Jowitt had on nine separate occasions tried to enlist for the Great War, he had been rejected on health grounds. As a result, there were many in the profession who despised him because he had never served, but had instead progressed his practice when his colleagues were dying on the western front. Others loathed him for what they saw as his political opportunism.

The crisis of August 1931 which broke up the Labour government over proposed spending cuts saw Jowitt siding with MacDonald. When MacDonald formed the National Government in September 1931, only a few Labour MPs took Jowitt’s lead in following MacDonald. Jowitt was again appointed Attorney General. The election took place on 27th October, and the Labour party was virtually wiped out, with 556 supporters of the National Government and an opposition of 56. Jowitt was defeated at the election. He remained Attorney General in the National Government after the election, but as neither his former party, the Liberals, nor his more recent party, Labour, would support him, he could not find an alternative seat and resigned on 26th January 1932. He and MacDonald were expelled from the Labour party, angry with what it saw as MacDonald’s betrayal of his party at the end of 1931.

It seemed possible that Jowitt would become Lord Chief Justice as Lord Hewart was seriously ill and at that time the tradition was that an ex-Attorney General was entitled to be offered a vacancy.11 However, Hewart recovered and remained in post until 1940.

In that post First World War period, the judgments that stand out are those of the very strong Court of Appeal of Scrutton, Atkin and Bankes. But this was not always the easiest of courts to appear in front of; Scrutton could be difficult as one unfortunate junior found out when appearing in front of him:

10 Heuston p87 11 Ibid p89

We are having some difficulty in following your submissions and wonder whether you might like to put them in some sort of order.

Logical order would obviously be best, but this is clearly not to be hoped for. Alternatively you might consider a chronological presentation. But if this is also too much to ask, at least try alphabetical.12

Jowitt returned to the bar at the beginning of 1932. During the 1930s, while retaining his pre-eminent position at the Commercial bar, he became one of the very few counsel in demand for any case in which money was no object. In accordance with what was then acceptable practice, he was prepared to take two or even three cases on the same day. He might open a case in one court, and then go off to cross-examine an important witness in another. He might or might not return to do the closing speech. The instructing solicitors accepted a special scale of fees devised by his clerk. For the ordinary cases the ordinarily handsome fee, but for cases to which he undertook to give “his undivided attention”, a specially increased fee.

Jowitt’s skills in court were remembered by Dr Charles Hill, assistant medical secretary of the BMA, who had briefed him at 1,200 guineas plus 100 guineas a day to appear before the House of Lords Select Committee to oppose a bill for the recognition and registration of osteopaths.13 Jowitt did not endear himself to the clients at the first conference when he described in considerable detail the manipulative treatment he received daily from an osteopath and said he could not get through the day without it. However, his cross-examination of the Principal of the British School of Osteopathy focused on a reference in the school’s prospectus to the latter possessing an American degree which was missing in the following year’s document:

Courteous, urbane and patient through his cross-examination, the discomfiture of the witness grew visibly as Jowitt added to his knowledge by interrogation. He was the innocent searcher after truth, so anxious to learn how degrees in medicine and philosophy were acquired in the United States. He was astounded – at least he

12 Michael Kerr As Far as I Remember, (2006) Hart Publishing (“Kerr”) p240 13 Heuston p90

looked astounded – when the witness admitted he had forgotten the names of his teachers, his old masters, at medical school. He was so gently surprised when the witness did not know where the

University of Texas was, though he said he was a graduate of it.

So devastating was his cross-examination of this gentleman that it seemed to me that this alone was enough to make it certain that the

Select Committee would report against the Bill. It was undoubtedly that, more than anything else, which led the promoter of the Bill to try to withdraw it.

This cross-examination bears a remarkable resemblance to another famous Brick Court cross-examination over 70 years later.14

Jowitt, who was devoted to his clerk Cheeseman, now took four rooms on the second floor of 1 Brick Court. One room was Jowitt’s, another was for Cheeseman. A third was for a secretary who could do typing and shorthand, apparently the only such person in any set of chambers in London at the time.15

14 See p112 15 Devlin p154