Geoffrey Dawson Lane, Baron Lane, (17 July 1918 – 22 August 2005) was a British barrister and judge who served as
Lord Chief Justice of England from 1980 to 1992, having previously served as a
Lord of Appeal in Ordinary
Lords of Appeal in Ordinary, commonly known as Law Lords, were judges appointed under the Appellate Jurisdiction Act 1876 to the British House of Lords, as a committee of the House, effectively to exercise the judicial functions of the House of ...
from 1977 until 1980.
The son of a bank manager, Lane was educated at
Shrewsbury School
Shrewsbury School is a Public school (United Kingdom), public school in Shrewsbury.
Founded in 1552 by Edward VI by royal charter, to replace the town's Saxon collegiate foundations which were disestablished in the sixteenth century, Shrewsb ...
and
Trinity College, Cambridge
Trinity College is a Colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Founded in 1546 by King Henry VIII, Trinity is one of the largest Cambridge colleges, with the largest financial endowment of any ...
. During the
Second World War
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 ...
, he served as a pilot in the
Royal Air Force
The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the Air force, air and space force of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. It was formed towards the end of the World War I, First World War on 1 April 1918, on the merger of t ...
, for which he received the
Air Force Cross. Called to the English bar in 1946, he practiced with great success, prosecuted in several high-profile criminal cases, and
took silk
A King's Counsel ( post-nominal initials KC) is a senior lawyer appointed by the monarch (or their viceregal representative) of some Commonwealth realms as a "Counsel learned in the law". When the reigning monarch is a woman, the title is Qu ...
in 1962. He was appointed to the
High Court in 1969, sitting in the Queen's Bench Division, was promoted to the
Court of Appeal
An appellate court, commonly called a court of appeal(s), appeal court, court of second instance or second instance court, is any court of law that is empowered to Hearing (law), hear a Legal case, case upon appeal from a trial court or other ...
in 1974 and to the
House of Lords
The House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the lower house, the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster in London, England. One of the oldest ext ...
in 1977. The next year, after only six months in office, he was appointed
Lord Chief Justice of England, serving until his retirement in 1992. A private man, Lane never gave interviews and kept a low public profile until his death in 2005.
The later part of his term was marred by a succession of disputed convictions, though Lane remained highly regarded by his colleagues and the legal profession. Lane's critics claimed that his refusal to believe that police evidence could be institutionally corrupt, and his reluctance to overturn the verdict of a jury, "represented a dangerous hindrance to justice".
His failure to allow the appeal of the
Birmingham Six
The Birmingham Six were six men from Northern Ireland who were each sentenced to life imprisonment in 1975 following their false convictions for the 1974 Birmingham pub bombings. Their convictions were declared unsafe and unsatisfactory and q ...
in 1988 led to calls for his resignation following their successful appeal in 1991; an editorial in ''
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 ...
'' "urged him to go", while 140
members of parliament signed a
House of Commons
The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the Bicameralism, bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of ...
motion to that effect. On his death, the barrister
Sir Louis Blom-Cooper declared that "by common consent of the legal profession, Lane was a very great Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales".
Early life
The son of a bank manager, Geoffrey Lane was born in
Derby
Derby ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority area on the River Derwent, Derbyshire, River Derwent in Derbyshire, England. Derbyshire is named after Derby, which was its original co ...
.
He attended
Shrewsbury School
Shrewsbury School is a Public school (United Kingdom), public school in Shrewsbury.
Founded in 1552 by Edward VI by royal charter, to replace the town's Saxon collegiate foundations which were disestablished in the sixteenth century, Shrewsb ...
and
Trinity College, Cambridge
Trinity College is a Colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Founded in 1546 by King Henry VIII, Trinity is one of the largest Cambridge colleges, with the largest financial endowment of any ...
where he took Firsts in Part I of the Classical Tripos before the
Second World War
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 ...
and both parts of the Law Tripos after he was demobilized. During the war, he served as a pilot in the
Royal Air Force
The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the Air force, air and space force of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. It was formed towards the end of the World War I, First World War on 1 April 1918, on the merger of t ...
. Initially, he flew
Wellington Bombers for
104 Squadron, before being promoted to
squadron leader
Squadron leader (Sqn Ldr or S/L) is a senior officer rank used by some air forces, with origins from the Royal Air Force. The rank is used by air forces of many countries that have historical British influence.
Squadron leader is immediatel ...
to command
233 Squadron, which flew
Dakota transport aircraft in
D-Day
The Normandy landings were the landing operations and associated airborne operations on 6 June 1944 of the Allied invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord during the Second World War. Codenamed Operation Neptune and often referred to as ...
and
Operation Market Garden. He was awarded the
Air Force Cross in 1943.
Legal career
Lane 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 ...
at
Gray's Inn
The Honourable Society of Gray's Inn, commonly known as Gray's Inn, is one of the four Inns of Court (professional associations for barristers and judges) in London. To be called to the bar in order to practise as a barrister in England and Wale ...
in 1946.
He specialised in criminal prosecutions on the Midland and Oxford circuit, and
took silk
A King's Counsel ( post-nominal initials KC) is a senior lawyer appointed by the monarch (or their viceregal representative) of some Commonwealth realms as a "Counsel learned in the law". When the reigning monarch is a woman, the title is Qu ...
in 1962. He prosecuted some of the
Great Train robbers and the murderer
James Hanratty
James Hanratty (4 October 1936 – 4 April 1962), also known as the A6 Murderer, was a British criminal who was one of the final eight people in the UK to be executed before capital punishment was abolished. He was hanged at HM Prison Bedford ...
in the same year, and was appointed as
Recorder of
Bedford
Bedford is a market town in Bedfordshire, England. At the 2011 Census, the population was 106,940. Bedford is the county town of Bedfordshire and seat of the Borough of Bedford local government district.
Bedford was founded at a ford (crossin ...
in 1963.
While appearing for the defendant in the case of ''R v Morris'', he made a much-cited statement as to what constituted '
common purpose
The doctrine of common purpose, common design, joint enterprise, joint criminal enterprise or parasitic accessory liability is a common law legal doctrine that imputes criminal liability to the participants in a criminal enterprise for all reas ...
' for the
criminal law
Criminal law is the body of law that relates to crime. It proscribes conduct perceived as threatening, harmful, or otherwise endangering to the property, health, safety, and Well-being, welfare of people inclusive of one's self. Most criminal l ...
, which
Lord Parker of Waddington CJ adopted:
:"where two persons embark on a joint enterprise, each is liable for the acts done in pursuance of that joint enterprise, that that includes liability for unusual consequences if they arise from the execution of the agreed joint enterprise but (and this is the crux of the matter) that, if one of the adventurers goes beyond what had been tacitly agreed as part of the common enterprise, his co-adventurer is not liable for the consequences of that unauthorised act. Finally, he says it is for the jury in every case to decide whether what was done was part of the joint enterprise, or went beyond it and was in fact an act unauthorised by that joint enterprise."
He is also famous for his quote: "Loss of freedom seldom happens overnight. Oppression doesn't stand on the doorstep with toothbrush moustache and swastika armband – it creeps up insidiously... step by step, and all of a sudden the unfortunate citizen realizes that it is gone."
Judicial office
High Court
Later in 1966, Lane was appointed a Justice of the
High Court, assigned to the
Queen's Bench Division
The King's Bench Division (or Queen's Bench Division when the monarch is female) of the High Court of Justice deals with a wide range of common law cases and has supervisory responsibility over certain lower courts.
It hears appeals on point ...
, receiving the customary
knighthood
A knight is a person granted an honorary title of a knighthood by a head of state (including the pope) or representative for service to the monarch, the church, or the country, especially in a military capacity.
The concept of a knighthood ...
. He was elected 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 ...
at Gray's Inn the same year.
He delivered some notable judgments: in 1968, he awarded damages against a school for a pupil who had been injured in 'horseplay' between his peers, saying that the school had a responsibility to stop it from getting out of hand; and while acting as an appeal judge, he found for the publishers of ''
Last Exit to Brooklyn
''Last Exit to Brooklyn'' is a 1964 novel by American author Hubert Selby Jr. The novel takes a harsh, uncompromising look at lower class Brooklyn in the 1950s written in spare, stripped-down prose.
Critics and fellow writers praised the b ...
'' who had been convicted of publishing an
obscene
An obscenity is any utterance or act that strongly offends the prevalent morality of the time. It is derived from the Latin , , "boding ill; disgusting; indecent", of uncertain etymology. Generally, the term can be used to indicate strong moral ...
book, because of faults in the trial Judge's summing-up. He was chosen to head the inquiry into the
Staines air disaster in 1972, and concluded that the underlying cause was an undiagnosed heart condition of the pilot which impaired his judgement, coupled with the pilot's known bad temper which led to his junior crew being unwilling to challenge him.
Court of Appeal and House of Lords
Lane was made a
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 ...
in 1974. He was one of the appeal judges in
Tameside Metropolitan Borough Council's appeal to keep its
grammar schools
A grammar school is one of several different types of school in the history of education in the United Kingdom and other English-speaking countries, originally a Latin school, school teaching Latin, but more recently an academically oriented Se ...
rather than be forced by the government to adopt a
comprehensive system, and joined in the judgment that found for Tameside and brought a halt to comprehensivisation. Lane's judgment was personally critical of
Fred Mulley
Frederick William Mulley, Baron Mulley, PC (3 July 1918 – 15 March 1995) was a British Labour Party politician, barrister-at-law and economist.
Early life
Mulley was born in Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, the son of William Mulley, a general ...
, the
Secretary of State for Education and Science
The secretary of state for education, also referred to as the education secretary, is a Secretary of State (United Kingdom), secretary of state in the Government of the United Kingdom, responsible for the work of the Department for Education. ...
for being "far from frank" about his reason for intervening in Tameside.
In another high-profile case in 1977, Lane joined in dismissing an appeal against deportation from
Mark Hosenball, an American journalist working for the ''
Evening Standard
The ''London Standard'', formerly the ''Evening Standard'' (1904–2024) and originally ''The Standard'' (1827–1904), is a long-established regional newspaper published weekly and distributed free newspaper, free of charge in London, Engl ...
''. In 1978, Lane found for the
Labour Party and against its dissident members (
Paul McCormick and
Julian Lewis) who tried to win control of Newham North East Constituency Labour Party from the party's
National Executive.
Lane became a
Lord of Appeal in Ordinary
Lords of Appeal in Ordinary, commonly known as Law Lords, were judges appointed under the Appellate Jurisdiction Act 1876 to the British House of Lords, as a committee of the House, effectively to exercise the judicial functions of the House of ...
on 28 September 1979, receiving as a
law lord
Lords of Appeal in Ordinary, commonly known as Law Lords, were judges appointed under the Appellate Jurisdiction Act 1876 to the British House of Lords, as a committee of the House, effectively to exercise the judicial functions of the House of ...
additionally a
life peerage
In the United Kingdom, life peers are appointed members of the peerage whose titles cannot be inherited, in contrast to hereditary peers. Life peers are appointed by the monarch on the advice of the prime minister. With the exception of the D ...
as Baron Lane, of
St Ippollitts in the County of
Hertfordshire
Hertfordshire ( or ; often abbreviated Herts) is a ceremonial county in the East of England and one of the home counties. It borders Bedfordshire to the north-west, Cambridgeshire to the north-east, Essex to the east, Greater London to the ...
.
He had been appointed by the new
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 ...
,
Lord Hailsham, soon after
Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher (; 13 October 19258 April 2013), was a British stateswoman who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party (UK), Leader of th ...
won the
1979 general election. His appointment was welcomed in the legal profession, where Lane was regarded as a genial figure ("Geoffrey Dawson, Baron Lane. Good to have you back again."
), but eventually not welcomed by Lane himself, who disliked the work. The overdue retirement of
Lord Widgery
John Passmore Widgery, Baron Widgery, (24 July 1911 – 26 July 1981) was an English judge who served as Lord Chief Justice of England from 1971 to 1980. He is principally noted for presiding over the Widgery Tribunal on the events of Bloody S ...
, whose physical ill-health and increasing dementia had become a suppressed scandal, led to Hailsham picking Lane to follow him as
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 ...
from 1980.
Lord Chief Justice
Shortly after taking over as Lord Chief Justice, Lane attracted political controversy when he called for a general reduction in prison terms. His appeal judgments frequently cut the length of sentences and he was known to be a member of the
Prison Reform Trust
The Prison Reform Trust (PRT) was founded in 1981 in London, England, by a small group of prison reform campaigners who were unhappy with the direction in which the Howard League for Penal Reform was heading, concentrating more on community puni ...
. He had served as deputy chairman of the
Parole Board A parole board is a panel of people who decide whether an offender should be released from prison on parole after serving at least a minimum portion of their sentence as prescribed by the sentencing judge. Parole boards are used in many jurisdiction ...
from 1970 to 1972. After the publication of lengthy interviews with members of the jury in the trial of
Jeremy Thorpe
John Jeremy Thorpe (29 April 1929 – 4 December 2014) was a British politician who served as the Member of Parliament for North Devon from 1959 to 1979 and as leader of the Liberal Party from 1967 to 1976. In May 1979 he was tried at the Old ...
, Lane supported moves (later made in the
Contempt of Court Act 1981
The Contempt of Court Act 1981 (c. 49) is an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It codifies some aspects of the common law offence of contempt of court
Contempt of court, often referred to simply as "contempt", is the crime of bei ...
) to ban any publication of reports from within the jury room. Lane also opposed the proposal to extend rights of audience in the higher courts to solicitors.
One of the areas of crime in which Lane did not support shorter sentences was rape. In 1982, Lane stated that sentences for rape should include immediate prison time, except in the most exceptional circumstances, which was taken as an implied rebuke for a Judge who had attracted controversy for fining a rapist
£2,000 and saying that the victim was "guilty of a great deal of
contributory negligence
In some common law jurisdictions, contributory negligence is a defense to a tort claim based on negligence. If it is available, the defense completely bars plaintiffs from any recovery if they contribute to their own injury through their own neg ...
". Lane made it clear he rejected the general concept that victims of rape could have given their attackers an excuse. Much later in his career, Lane was responsible for a judgment in the case of ''
R v R'' which for the first time held that a husband could be guilty of raping his wife, overturning the
irrebuttable presumption at
common law
Common law (also known as judicial precedent, judge-made law, or case law) is the body of law primarily developed through judicial decisions rather than statutes. Although common law may incorporate certain statutes, it is largely based on prece ...
that a wife consented to sex with her husband.
Many observers regarded Lane as a defender of traditional 'Victorian' morality rather than a supporter of mild feminism. In 1983, he gave the
Darwin Lecture
Darwin may refer to:
Common meanings
* Charles Darwin (1809–1882), English naturalist and writer, best known as the originator of the theory of biological evolution by natural selection
* Darwin, Northern Territory, a capital city in Australia, ...
at
Cambridge
Cambridge ( ) is a List of cities in the United Kingdom, city and non-metropolitan district in the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It is the county town of Cambridgeshire and is located on the River Cam, north of London. As of the 2021 Unit ...
, in which he stated that he believed that the word "gay" should not be used to mean homosexual, and that instead the term should be "homosexuals, and/or buggers".
Disputed convictions
Lane had an early introduction to controversies and disputed convictions when, in 1962, he was the junior Crown counsel in the trial of
James Hanratty
James Hanratty (4 October 1936 – 4 April 1962), also known as the A6 Murderer, was a British criminal who was one of the final eight people in the UK to be executed before capital punishment was abolished. He was hanged at HM Prison Bedford ...
for the
A6 murder. Hanratty was
hanged
Hanging is killing a person by suspending them from the neck with a noose or ligature strangulation, ligature. Hanging has been a standard method of capital punishment since the Middle Ages, and has been the primary execution method in numerou ...
but disputes over whether he was properly convicted have continued to this day. He also represented the
Metropolitan Police at the
Brabin inquiry into the conviction and subsequent hanging of
Timothy Evans for the murders at 10 Rillington Place in 1950. From the mid-1980s, concern grew. On 5 December 1985, Lane quashed the conviction of Anthony Mycock who had been convicted of a robbery which the
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...
television programme ''
Rough Justice'' argued had never occurred. In his judgment, Lane asserted that there had been a robbery and criticised the programme for "outrageous" interview methods. He regarded such programmes as "mere entertainment".
When the
Birmingham Six
The Birmingham Six were six men from Northern Ireland who were each sentenced to life imprisonment in 1975 following their false convictions for the 1974 Birmingham pub bombings. Their convictions were declared unsafe and unsatisfactory and q ...
were granted permission to appeal in 1987, Lane presided over what was (at six weeks) the longest criminal appeal in English legal history. The judgment, given on 28 January 1988, adopted all the key parts of the Crown case, dismissed defence witnesses as unreliable, and upheld the convictions. Lane concluded by sending a message to the
Home Secretary
The secretary of state for the Home Department, more commonly known as the home secretary, is a senior minister of the Crown in the Government of the United Kingdom and the head of the Home Office. The position is a Great Office of State, maki ...
: "As has happened before in References by the Home Secretary to this court, the longer this hearing has gone on the more convinced this court has become that the verdict of the jury was correct." This implied rebuke and invitation not to refer any more questioned cases was criticised by campaigners. Lane initially refused leave to appeal to
Winston Silcott, convicted of the murder of
Keith Blakelock in the midst of a strong campaign of vilification from tabloid newspapers. In his findings he concluded that there was "no lurking doubt" in spite of the flimsiness of the prosecution case.
Silcott's conviction for the Blakelock murder was ultimately quashed in 1991.
Unfortunately for Lane, in 1989, the appeal of the
Guildford Four
The Guildford Four and Maguire Seven were two groups of people, mostly Northern Irish, who were wrongly convicted in English courts in 1975 and 1976 of the Guildford pub bombings of 5 October 1974 and the Woolwich pub bombing of 7 November 1974 ...
proved police malpractice conclusively. In this case, Lane overturned the convictions. One observer described his appearance: "The Lord Chief Justice seemed to sniff something nasty in the air. Peering out over half-moon spectacles, Lord Lane's weary face was the mask of Justice embarrassed."
Lane refused to free Paul Hill, one of the Four, because of a separate conviction for murder in
Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland ( ; ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, part of the United Kingdom in the north-east of the island of Ireland. It has been #Descriptions, variously described as a country, province or region. Northern Ireland shares Repub ...
, although this later turned out also to have been a wrongful conviction.
The Birmingham Six were granted a further appeal (their third) in 1991, when more evidence established that the police evidence at their trial had been fabricated. The
Director of Public Prosecutions announced before the appeal was held that he no longer considered their convictions safe and satisfactory. Lane did not preside over the appeal which formally cleared them. Their successful appeal led to calls for Lane to resign, including a hostile editorial in ''
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 ...
'' and a motion in the
House of Commons
The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the Bicameralism, bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of ...
signed by 140 members of parliament. These, and other cases where convictions were overturned, blighted the end of Lane's tenure as Lord Chief Justice.
Retirement
Despite previous thoughts that he would resign before the end of his time to enjoy an active retirement, Lane stayed in office until 1992. Despite remaining in office after the Birmingham Six were released, he nevertheless resigned over a year before he would have been forced to retire at the age of 75. He headed a commission in 1993 which recommended the end of the
mandatory life sentence
Mandatory sentencing requires that people convicted of certain crimes serve a predefined term of imprisonment, removing the discretion of judges to take issues such as extenuating circumstances and a person's likelihood of rehabilitation into co ...
for murder, but otherwise kept a low profile (he never gave press interviews while in office and did not change that policy in his retirement).
He died in 2005 and was buried in the churchyard at
St Ippolyts, near
Hitchin
Hitchin () is a market town in the North Hertfordshire Districts of England, district of Hertfordshire, England. The town dates from at least the 7th century. It lies in the valley of the River Hiz at the north-eastern end of the Chiltern Hills ...
in
Hertfordshire
Hertfordshire ( or ; often abbreviated Herts) is a ceremonial county in the East of England and one of the home counties. It borders Bedfordshire to the north-west, Cambridgeshire to the north-east, Essex to the east, Greater London to the ...
.
References
External links
Obituary(
BBC News
BBC News is an operational business division of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs in the UK and around the world. The department is the world's largest broad ...
, 24 August 2005)
Obituary(''
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...
'', 23 August 2005)
Obituary(''
The Telegraph
''The Telegraph'', ''Daily Telegraph'', ''Sunday Telegraph'' and other variant names are often names for newspapers. Newspapers with these titles include:
Australia
* The Telegraph (Adelaide), ''The Telegraph'' (Adelaide), a newspaper in Adelaid ...
'', 24 August 2005)
Obituary(''
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 ...
'', 24 August 2005)
Obituary(''
The Independent
''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publis ...
'', 25 August 2005)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lane, Geoffrey
1918 births
2005 deaths
20th-century English judges
Knights Bachelor
Law lords
Lord chief justices of England and Wales
Queen's Bench Division judges
Members of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom
Members of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council
Members of Gray's Inn
Royal Air Force officers
British World War II pilots
British World War II bomber pilots
Recipients of the Air Force Cross (United Kingdom)
People from Derby
Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge
People educated at Shrewsbury School
Lord justices of appeal
Military personnel from Derby