Hartley Shawcross

Hartley Shawcross was an MP and member of the House of Lords (he was knighted in 1945, and appointed GBE in 1974), but 'it was his performance as Chief Prosecutor for the United Kingdom at the Nuremberg war crimes trial that was to be his greatest claim to fame.' He entered the Commons in 1945 and became Attorney-General in the Labour government of Clement Attlee. Later he moved to the political right joining the conservative moral campaigners the Responsible Society in the early 1970s and supporting the Countryside Alliance in 2002.

Nuremberg

Shawcross made his name at the Nuremberg tribunal. The Telegraph obituary reported:

Hartley Shawcross's five-hour opening speech at Nuremberg set out the legal justification for the proceedings. He showed that the Tribunal, far from being an instrument of vengeance set up by the victors, was administering rules of international law which had been established before the war, with the full concurrence of Germany. The writer Rebecca West described his final address as "full of living pity, which gave the men in the box their worst hour". Even the accused admired his intellectual grasp.

IRIS

According to Seumas Milne, an approach from Shawcross in the early 1960s, helped to secure funding for the Industrial Research and information Service.

Family values activism

Shawcross was an early 'patron' of the Responsible Society (later known as Family and Youth Concern).

Affiliations

Responsible Society | 'Although he was not strong enough to take part in the Countryside Alliance's Liberty and Livelihood march in 2002, he made a point of signing its "Marching in Spirit" register.'

Family

William Shawcross, son

Resources

• Lord Shawcross Daily Telegraph, 12:02AM BST 11 Jul 2003