Sir Cyril Atkinson (9 May 1874 – 29 January 1967) was an English barrister and

Conservative Party The Conservative Party is a name used by many political parties around the world. These political parties are generally right-wing though their exact ideologies can range from center-right to far-right. Political parties called The Conservative P ...

politician. He served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Altrincham in

Cheshire Cheshire ( ) is a ceremonial and historic county in North West England, bordered by Wales to the west, Merseyside and Greater Manchester to the north, Derbyshire to the east, and Staffordshire and Shropshire to the south. Cheshire's county t ...

from 1924 to 1933, when he resigned to become a High Court judge.

Private life

Atkinson was the son of Leonard William Atkinson, from Cheshire. He married Kathleen O'Neill Longridge in 1900. Their son

Fenton Atkinson Sir Fenton Atkinson (6 January 1906 – 28 March 1980) was a British High Court judge. He was the judge who oversaw the trial of the Moors murderers, Ian Brady and Myra Hindley, at Chester Assizes in 1966. Early and private life Atkinson was ...

was born in 1906; he was later a judge in the High Court and then the Court of Appeal. After his first wife's death in 1947, Atkinson married Florence Morton Henderson in 1948; she was the widow of Colonel Michael Henderson.

Career

Atkinson 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 ...

in 1897 and was appointed

King's Counsel In the United Kingdom and in some Commonwealth countries, a King's Counsel ( post-nominal initials KC) during the reign of a king, or Queen's Counsel (post-nominal initials QC) during the reign of a queen, is a lawyer (usually a barrister or ...

in 1913. In 1924, Atkinson was chosen by Altrincham Unionists to be their parliamentary candidate for the seat they had lost to the Liberals in

1923 Events January–February * January 9 – Lithuania begins the Klaipėda Revolt to annex the Klaipėda Region (Memel Territory). * January 11 – Despite strong British protests, troops from France and Belgium occupy the Ruhr area, t ...

. He did not have long to wait before the 1924 general election, and he won the seat on a swing of 15%. At the 1929 general election, he again faced

Robert Alstead Robert Alstead (23 October 1873 – 9 September 1946) was a self-made businessman in the clothing trade and a Liberal Party politician in the United Kingdom. Family and education Alstead was born in Upholland, Lancashire, the son of a joiner a ...

, the Liberal he had unseated in 1924. The Labour party chose to field a candidate for the first time since

1922 Events January * January 7 – Dáil Éireann (Irish Republic), Dáil Éireann, the parliament of the Irish Republic, ratifies the Anglo-Irish Treaty by 64–57 votes. * January 10 – Arthur Griffith is elected President of Dáil Éirean ...

, which made Atkinson's job of holding the seat easier, giving him a majority of 18%. He was returned unopposed in

1931 Events January * January 2 – South Dakota native Ernest Lawrence invents the cyclotron, used to accelerate particles to study nuclear physics. * January 4 – German pilot Elly Beinhorn begins her flight to Africa. * January 22 – Sir I ...

, and in 1933 he resigned from the House of Commons on being appointed a High Court judge, serving in the King's Bench Division until he retired in 1948. He was Treasurer of

Lincoln's Inn The Honourable Society of Lincoln's Inn is one of the four Inns of Court in London to which barristers of England and Wales belong and where they are called to the Bar. (The other three are Middle Temple, Inner Temple and Gray's Inn.) Lincoln ...

in 1942. He served as a member of the

Church Assembly The General Synod is the tricameral deliberative and legislative organ of the Church of England. The synod was instituted in 1970, replacing the Church Assembly, and is the culmination of a process of rediscovering self-government for the Church o ...

(the forerunner to the General Synod) from 1950 to 1955.

Arms

References

National Portrait Gallery
* ‘ATKINSON, Hon. Sir Cyril’, Who Was Who, A & C Black, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing plc, 1920–2015; online edn, Oxford University Press, 2014 ; online edn, April 201
accessed 27 July 2015

External links

* 1874 births 1967 deaths Conservative Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies UK MPs 1924–1929 UK MPs 1929–1931 UK MPs 1931–1935 Queen's Bench Division judges Knights Bachelor {{England-Conservative-UK-MP-1870s-stub