Sir George Justin Lynskey (5 February 1888 – 21 December 1957) was an

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Culture, language and peoples * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England * ''English'', an Amish ter ...

jurist A jurist is a person with expert knowledge of law; someone who analyzes and comments on law. This person is usually a specialist legal scholar, mostly (but not always) with a formal education in law (a law degree) and often a Lawyer, legal prac ...

, particularly remembered for his role in investigating the

political scandal In politics, a political scandal is an action or event regarded as morally or legally wrong and causing general public outrage. Politicians, government officials, Political party, party officials and Lobbying, lobbyists can be accused of various ...

that led to the eponymous

Lynskey tribunal The Lynskey tribunal was a British government inquiry, set up in October 1948 to investigate rumours of possible corruption in the Board of Trade. Under the chairmanship of a High Court judge, Sir George Lynskey, it sat in November and Dece ...

Early life and legal career

Lynskey was born in

Knotty Ash Knotty Ash is an area of Liverpool, Merseyside, England, and a Liverpool City Council Ward. Historically in Lancashire, the population at the 2001 Census was 13,200, increasing to 13,312 at the 2011 Census. Knotty Ash is well known as the hom ...

Liverpool Liverpool is a port City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. It is situated on the eastern side of the River Mersey, Mersey Estuary, near the Irish Sea, north-west of London. With a population ...

, the son of

solicitor A solicitor is a lawyer who traditionally deals with most of the legal matters in some jurisdictions. A person must have legally defined qualifications, which vary from one jurisdiction to another, to be described as a solicitor and enabled to p ...

George Jeremy (1861–1921) who had himself been born in

Ireland Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...

and sat on

Liverpool City Council Liverpool City Council is the Local government in England, local authority for the City status in the United Kingdom, city of Liverpool in Merseyside, England. Liverpool has had a local authority since 1207, which has been reformed on numerous ...

alderman An alderman is a member of a Municipal government, municipal assembly or council in many jurisdictions founded upon English law with similar officials existing in the Netherlands (wethouder) and Belgium (schepen). The term may be titular, denotin ...

representing the

Irish National League The Irish National League (INL) was a nationalist political party in Ireland. It was founded on 17 October 1882 by Charles Stewart Parnell as the successor to the Irish National Land League after this was suppressed. Whereas the Land League ...

. Lynskey had three younger brothers and two sisters and was educated at

St. Francis Xavier's College A multitude of schools and universities have been named after St. Francis Xavier, a Spanish Roman Catholic saint and co-founder of the Society of Jesus. This page lists notable educational institutions named after St. Xavier, arranged by country a ...

then at the

University of Liverpool The University of Liverpool (abbreviated UOL) is a Public university, public research university in Liverpool, England. Founded in 1881 as University College Liverpool, Victoria University (United Kingdom), Victoria University, it received Ro ...

. He earned an

LLB A Bachelor of Laws (; LLB) is an undergraduate law degree offered in most common law countries as the primary law degree and serves as the first professional qualification for legal practitioners. This degree requires the study of core legal subje ...

(1907) and

LLM A large language model (LLM) is a language model trained with Self-supervised learning, self-supervised machine learning on a vast amount of text, designed for natural language processing tasks, especially Natural language generation, language g ...

(1908). He entered his father's practice as a solicitor in 1910, marrying Eileen Mary Prendiville in 1913. The couple had two daughters.Bryson (2004) In 1920 Lynskey took up the profession of a

barrister A barrister is a type of lawyer in common law jurisdiction (area), jurisdictions. Barristers mostly specialise in courtroom advocacy and litigation. Their tasks include arguing cases in courts and tribunals, drafting legal pleadings, jurisprud ...

, being

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 ...

by the

Inner Temple The Honourable Society of the Inner Temple, commonly known as the Inner Temple, is one of the four Inns of Court and is a professional association for barristers and judges. To be called to the Bar and practice as a barrister in England and Wa ...

. He practised on the northern circuit, building up one of the largest provincial practices of the time and becoming a KC in 1930.

David Maxwell Fyfe David Patrick Maxwell Fyfe, 1st Earl of Kilmuir, (29 May 1900 – 27 January 1967), known as Sir David Maxwell Fyfe from 1942 to 1954 and as Viscount Kilmuir from 1954 to 1962, was a British Conservative politician, lawyer and judge who combin ...

, a future prosecutor at the

Nuremberg Trials #REDIRECT Nuremberg trials {{redirect category shell, {{R from other capitalisation{{R from move ...

and

Lord Chancellor The Lord Chancellor, formally titled Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain, is a senior minister of the Crown within the Government of the United Kingdom. The lord chancellor is the minister of justice for England and Wales and the highest-ra ...

was one of his pupils and praised Lynskey's geniality and conviviality. He became a

bencher A bencher or Master of the Bench is a senior member of an Inn of Court in England and Wales or the Inns of Court in Northern Ireland, or the Honorable Society of King's Inns in Ireland. Benchers hold office for life once elected. A bencher c ...

of the Inner Temple in 1938 and a judge of the Salford Hundred Court of Record in 1937.

Judicial career

In 1944 a provincial barrister educated at a redbrick university with little exposure to the

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

bar or specialist practice, no matter how successful, was an unusual appointment for a High Court judge. However, he was appointed to the

King's Bench The King's Bench (), or, during the reign of a female monarch, the Queen's Bench ('), refers to several contemporary and historical courts in some Commonwealth jurisdictions. * Court of King's Bench (England), a historic court of common law in t ...

and became an effective but unfailingly courteous judge in criminal trials at various

assizes The assizes (), or courts of assize, were periodic courts held around England and Wales until 1972, when together with the quarter sessions they were abolished by the Courts Act 1971 and replaced by a single permanent Crown Court. The assizes ex ...

around

England and Wales England and Wales () is one of the Law of the United Kingdom#Legal jurisdictions, three legal jurisdictions of the United Kingdom. It covers the constituent countries England and Wales and was formed by the Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542. Th ...

. In 1945, he sat with

Lord Chief Justice The Lord or Lady Chief Justice of England and Wales is the head of the judiciary of England and Wales and the president of the courts of England and Wales. Until 2005 the lord chief justice was the second-most senior judge of the English a ...

Lord Goddard and Mr Justice Humphreys in the Court of Criminal Appeal in

William Joyce William Brooke Joyce (24 April 1906 – 3 January 1946), nicknamed Lord Haw-Haw, was an American-born Fascism, fascist and Propaganda of Nazi Germany, Nazi propaganda broadcaster during the World War II, Second World War. After moving from ...

appeal In law, an appeal is the process in which Legal case, cases are reviewed by a higher authority, where parties request a formal change to an official decision. Appeals function both as a process for error correction as well as a process of cla ...

against his conviction for

treason Treason is the crime of attacking a state (polity), state authority to which one owes allegiance. This typically includes acts such as participating in a war against one's native country, attempting to Coup d'état, overthrow its government, spy ...

during

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

. The court rejected Joyce's appeal. His most prominent role was as chair of the 1948 eponymous tribunal into alleged

corruption Corruption is a form of dishonesty or a criminal offense that is undertaken by a person or an organization that is entrusted in a position of authority to acquire illicit benefits or abuse power for one's gain. Corruption may involve activities ...

among

government minister A minister is a politician who heads a ministry, making and implementing decisions on policies in conjunction with the other ministers. In some jurisdictions the head of government is also a minister and is designated the ' prime minister', ' p ...

s and

civil servant The civil service is a collective term for a sector of government composed mainly of career civil service personnel hired rather than elected, whose institutional tenure typically survives transitions of political leadership. A civil service offic ...

s. Lynskey won high praise for his handling of the inquiry but declined appointment as

Lord Justice of Appeal A Lord Justice of Appeal or Lady Justice of Appeal is a judge of the Court of Appeal of England and Wales, the court that hears appeals from the High Court of Justice, the Crown Court and other courts and tribunals. A Lord (or Lady) Just ...

when offered by the

, the Earl Jowitt.

Personality and death

Lynskey was comfortable with

popular culture Popular culture (also called pop culture or mass culture) is generally recognized by members of a society as a set of cultural practice, practices, beliefs, artistic output (also known as popular art

f. pop art F is the sixth letter of the Latin alphabet. F may also refer to: Science and technology Mathematics * F or f, the number 15 (number), 15 in hexadecimal and higher positional systems * ''p'F'q'', the hypergeometric function * F-distributi ...

or mass art, sometimes contraste ...

, a keen follower of

sport Sport is a physical activity or game, often Competition, competitive and organization, organized, that maintains or improves physical ability and skills. Sport may provide enjoyment to participants and entertainment to spectators. The numbe ...

, especially

cricket Cricket is a Bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball game played between two Sports team, teams of eleven players on a cricket field, field, at the centre of which is a cricket pitch, pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two Bail (cr ...

and

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...

. He supported

Everton F.C. Everton Football Club () is a professional association football club based in Liverpool, England. The club competes in the Premier League, the top tier of English football. Founded in 1878, the club was a founding member of the Football Lea ...

and, during the tribunal, was minded to correct

Attorney-General In most common law jurisdictions, the attorney general (: attorneys general) or attorney-general (AG or Atty.-Gen) is the main legal advisor to the government. In some jurisdictions, attorneys general also have executive responsibility for law enf ...

Hartley Shawcross Hartley William Shawcross, Baron Shawcross, (4 February 1902 – 10 July 2003), known from 1945 to 1959 as Sir Hartley Shawcross, was an English barrister and Labour politician who served as the lead British prosecutor at the Nuremberg War Cr ...

as to the date the football season had ended. After completing an assize in

Manchester Manchester () is a city and the metropolitan borough of Greater Manchester, England. It had an estimated population of in . Greater Manchester is the third-most populous metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, with a population of 2.92&nbs ...

in 1957, he collapsed with

coronary thrombosis Coronary thrombosis is defined as the formation of a blood clot inside a blood vessel of the heart. This blood clot may then restrict blood flow within the heart, leading to heart tissue damage, or a myocardial infarction, also known as a heart ...

and died soon after in

Manchester Royal Infirmary Manchester Royal Infirmary (MRI) is a large NHS teaching hospital in Chorlton-on-Medlock, Manchester, England. Founded by Charles White in 1752 as part of the voluntary hospital movement of the 18th century, it is now a major regional and nati ...

. Lynskey was a devout

Roman Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics worldwide as of 2025. It is among the world's oldest and largest international institut ...

and Archbishop

William Godfrey William Godfrey (25 July 1889 – 22 January 1963) was an English Cardinal (Catholicism), Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as Archbishop of Westminster from 1956 until his death, and was elevated to the Cardinal (Catholicism), ...

officiated at his

requiem mass A Requiem (Latin: ''rest'') or Requiem Mass, also known as Mass for the dead () or Mass of the dead (), is a Mass of the Catholic Church offered for the repose of the souls of the deceased, using a particular form of the Roman Missal. It is u ...

. He was buried at Brooklands cemetery,

Weybridge Weybridge () is a town in the Borough of Elmbridge, Elmbridge district in Surrey, England, around southwest of central London. The settlement is recorded as ''Waigebrugge'' and ''Weibrugge'' in the 7th century and the name derives from a cro ...

, on 31 December.

Honours

*Rupert Bremner gold medal of the Law Society (1910) * LLD, University of Liverpool (1951)

References

Bibliography

*Obituaries **''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British Newspaper#Daily, daily Newspaper#National, national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its modern name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its si ...

'', 23 December 1957 **''Law Times'', 3 January 1958 **''St Francis Xavier's College Magazine'' (1957) ---- * non.(1948)
The Bribes Tribunal Judge is Every Inch an Irishman
, ''Sunday Pictorial'', 12 December *Bryson, G. (2004)
Lynskey, Sir George Justin (1888–1957)
, ''

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography The ''Dictionary of National Biography'' (''DNB'') is a standard work of reference on notable figures from History of the British Isles, British history, published since 1885. The updated ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' (''ODNB'') ...

'', Oxford University Press, accessed 21 July 2007 * {{DEFAULTSORT:Lynskey, George Justin 1888 births 1957 deaths English barristers 20th-century English judges English Roman Catholics Queen's Bench Division judges People from Knotty Ash Members of the Inner Temple Alumni of the University of Liverpool Knights Bachelor Lawyers from Liverpool People educated at St Francis Xavier's College, Liverpool