Sir Thomas Edward Scrutton (1856–1934) was an English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 legal text-writer and judge

Judge

A judge is a person who presides over court proceedings, either alone or as part of a panel of judges. The powers, functions, method of appointment, discipline, and training of judges vary widely across different jurisdictions. The judge is supposed to conduct the trial impartially and in an open...

.

Biography

Thomas Edward Scrutton was born in London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

, UK. He studied as a scholar at Trinity College, Cambridge

Trinity College, Cambridge

Trinity College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Trinity has more members than any other college in Cambridge or Oxford, with around 700 undergraduates, 430 graduates, and over 170 Fellows...

, then at University College London

University College London Law Faculty

The UCL Faculty of Laws is one of the 10 constituent faculties of University College London . It is one of the world’s premier law schools, renowned for the quality of its teaching and its cutting-edge legal research...

. After an outstanding academic career he developed a busy practice in commercial

Commercial law

Commercial law is the body of law that governs business and commercial transactions...

 cases, and wrote The Contract of Affreightment as Expressed in Charter-parties and Bills of Lading (1886). Over a century later, this is still the standard text, while several of his other legal works remain useful. He was a judge of the King's Bench Division (1910–16) and of the Court of Appeal (1916–34). He frequently sat in the Court of Appeal with Bankes and Atkin LJJ, a combination which has often been cited as one of the strongest benches in commercial cases. On the criminal side he presided over the celebrated 1915 " Brides -in-the-Bath " trial of George Joseph Smith

George Joseph Smith

George Joseph Smith was an English serial killer and bigamist. In 1915 he was convicted and subsequently hanged for the slayings of three women, the case becoming known as the "Brides in the Bath Murders". As well as being widely reported in the media, the case was a significant case in the...

, and made a crucial ruling on " similar fact evidence" :Smith was charged with murdering only one of his recent brides by drowning her in the bath, but Scrutton ruled that the fact that two of his other brides had died in almost identical circumstances was admissible as evidence of a method or pattern of murder.

Despite his great ability, Scrutton had a reputation as a difficult judge to appear before : "he did not suffer fools gladly , and often refused to suffer them at all " was one verdict. His intolerance extended even to other judges, particularly Sir Henry McCardie

Henry McCardie

Sir Henry Alfred McCardie was a controversial British judge. Educated at King Edward's School, Birmingham he left school at 16 and spent several years working for an auctioneer before qualifying as a barrister and being called to the Bar in 1894...

whom he attacked with increasing bitterness until their mutual antipathy resulted in a public quarrel. His reputation as a difficult judge may explain his failure to achieve further promotion to the House of Lords, since he was unquestionably well qualified on merit.

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