Sir Ralph Brian Gibson (17 October 1922 – 30 October 2003) was a British barrister,

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) Justice ...

of the

Court of Appeal of England and Wales The Court of Appeal (formally "His Majesty's Court of Appeal in England", commonly cited as "CA", "EWCA" or "CoA") is the highest court within the Senior Courts of England and Wales, and second in the legal system of England and Wales only to ...

, and Chairman of the Law Commission.

Education and early years

Gibson was educated at

Charterhouse School (God having given, I gave) , established = , closed = , type = Public school Independent day and boarding school , religion = Church of England , president ...

and graduated from Brasenose College, Oxford. His studies at Oxford were interrupted by

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, during which he served in the 1st King's Dragoon Guards in

North Africa North Africa, or Northern Africa is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region, and it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of Mauritania in t ...

as an armoured car driver and instructor, and the

Transjordan Frontier Force The Trans-Jordan Frontier Force was formed on 1 April 1926, to replace the disbanded British Gendarmerie. It was a creation of the British High Commissioner for Palestine whose intention was that the Force should defend Trans-Jordan's norther ...

. At Oxford he became a close personal friend of

Tony Benn Anthony Neil Wedgwood Benn (3 April 1925 – 14 March 2014), known between 1960 and 1963 as Viscount Stansgate, was a British politician, writer and diarist who served as a Cabinet minister in the 1960s and 1970s. A member of the Labour Party, ...

. In 1949 he was best man at Benn's wedding. After Oxford he spent a year at the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chic ...

as a teaching fellow, where he met and married Ann Ruether, a Chicago native who was part of the University faculty.

Career

He was called to the Bar by the

Middle Temple The Honourable Society of the Middle Temple, commonly known simply as Middle Temple, is one of the four Inns of Court exclusively entitled to call their members to the English Bar as barristers, the others being the Inner Temple, Gray's Inn ...

in 1948, and took silk in 1968. He was appointed chairman of the Law Commission from 1981 to 1985, after stepping down from that role was appointed as a Lord Justice of Appeal for a period of nine years after that. As a barrister, his obituary recorded that he was noted for his "rapid wit and rigorous research". He was also noted as "an open-minded and sympathetic judge". He reportedly once gave a robber a suspended sentence after being told that the defendant had donated a kidney to save his sister's life. As a Law Commissioner one of his notable contributions to English law was the Law Commission's proposals which led to "clean break" divorces.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gibson, Ralph Alumni of Brasenose College, Oxford British barristers Knights Bachelor Lords Justices of Appeal Members of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom Members of the Middle Temple People educated at Charterhouse School 1922 births 2003 deaths British Army personnel of World War II