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Sir David Charles Calcutt, QC (2 November 1930 – 11 August 2004) was an eminent
barrister A barrister is a type of lawyer in common law jurisdictions. Barristers mostly specialise in courtroom advocacy and litigation. Their tasks include taking cases in superior courts and tribunals, drafting legal pleadings, researching law and ...
and
public servant The civil service is a collective term for a sector of government composed mainly of career civil servants hired on professional merit rather than appointed or elected, whose institutional tenure typically survives transitions of political leaders ...
, knighted in 1991. He was the Master of Magdalene College, Cambridge from 1985 to 1994. He was also responsible for the creation of the Press Complaints Commission. He is buried in the churchyard of St Beuno's Church at
Culbone Culbone (also called Kitnor) is a hamlet consisting of little more than the parish church and a few houses, in the parish of Oare in the Exmoor National Park, Somerset, England. As there is no road access it is a two-mile walk from Porlock Weir, ...
, Somerset.


Early life and education

Calcutt was born at Marlow, Buckinghamshire, where his father, Henry, a pharmacist, ran a local high-street chemist's shop. Calcutt was a chorister in the choir of Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford whilst attending Christ Church Cathedral School, then went on to Cranleigh School. As an undergraduate at the University of Cambridge he was a choral scholar in the Choir of King's College, Cambridge. Calcutt was known throughout the 1980s and 1990s for preparing reports and inquiries into various areas of public life. he was asked to produce a report on a fire in the Falkland Islands in which eight people died, then soon afterwards to produce a report into the Cyprus Seven spy affair, in which seven servicemen were acquitted of having passed secrets to the Russians. He is most famous for suggesting the creation of the Press Complaints Commission in 1990, though he was later quite scathing about it describing it as In 1969, he married Barbara Walker, a psychiatric worker. In later life, he developed Parkinson's disease, but he remained "cheerful and genial".


References

ie 1930 births 2004 deaths Alumni of King's College, Cambridge Fellows of Magdalene College, Cambridge Masters of Magdalene College, Cambridge English barristers Knights Bachelor Lawyers awarded knighthoods Members of the Middle Temple English King's Counsel English legal scholars 20th-century English lawyers {{England-law-bio-stub