biography
| name: |
Denning (of Whitchurch), Alfred Thompson Denning, Baron
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| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (1899–1999)
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| biography:
| British judge, born in Whitchurch, Hampshire, S England, UK. He studied at Oxford, was called to the bar in 1923, became a KC in 1938, and a judge of the High Court of Justice in 1944. In 1963 he led the inquiry into the circumstances of John Profumo's resignation as secretary of state for war. As Master of the Rolls (1962–82) he was responsible for many often controversial decisions. He was knighted in 1944, and made a life peer in 1957. Among his books are The Road to Justice (1955) and What Next in the Law (1982). His clear judgments and opinions protecting the individual against the ‘big battalions’ made him one of the most popular judges of the 20th-c, although some of his opinions, particularly in later years, aroused controversy. Historically, he is remembered as a great legal reformer who had a ‘vision of the common law that reverberated throughout the world’ (Lord Woolf). |
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