Talk:David Maxwell Fyfe, 1st Earl of Kilmuir

Untitled
Mention should be made of David Maxwell Fyfe's disgraceful behavior as home secretary in the Derek Bentley case. Bentley, "who was dim-witted, had no record of violence, had no gun, had not fired the shot, and had been under police arrest for fifteen minutes before the fatal shooting" (DNB, entry for Derek Bentley), was executed in 1953 for the murder of Police Constable Sidney Miles.

Despite the manifest deficiencies of the trial, which included a notoriously biased summing up against the defense by the judge, the youth and mental deficiency of the defendant, and other factors, Maxwell Fyfe refused to recommend that the queen exercise the prerogative of mercy.

"There is little doubt that the home secretary was wrong in refusing to commute the sentence of death. Clemency can normally be exercised for any one of the following reasons: youth; mental problems; a jury recommendation for mercy; widespread or strong local public opinion; the principle that if the leading actor cannot be executed then neither should any associate; and the existence of more than a scintilla of doubt about the evidence. Bentley met each criterion. Maxwell Fyfe's advisers recommended clemency but he remained obdurate to the end." (ibid.)

Again from the DNB, "In 1997 the case was one of the earliest examined by the Criminal Cases Review Commission for a suspected miscarriage of justice. The commission determined that it merited referring back to the Court of Appeal to reconsider the verdict. This time the court decided that the conviction was unsafe and quashed it on 30 July 1998."

I do agree, I plan to add a few lines about Maxwell Fyfe's actions on the Derek Bentley case. Despite the appeals of 200 MPs, he decdided not to grant clemency. It was quite possible Maxwell Fyfe took the line that "someone must pay" over the death of the police officer since Craig was too young to hang.

smr 10:48, 18 August 2006 (UTC)smrgeog

Bizarre article name - propose rename
Surely "David Maxwell Fyfe, 1st Earl of Kilmuir" comes on the stranger end of page titles. "1st Earl of Kilmuir" was hardly part of the guy's name? I propose to rename it to "David Maxwell-Fyfe" (including the hyphen as Maxwell was part of his doubled barrelled surname, not a middle name). — Blue-Haired Lawyer 20:55, 10 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Now that I look around I see other article with similar titles. Nonetheless, a search on Google produces many more entries which say either just "David Maxwell-Fyfe" or "Sir David Maxwell-Fyfe" than ones which refer to the 1st Earl of Kilmuir. Since I believe we normally leave out the sir from page titles, I'll go ahead with the rename. — Blue-Haired Lawyer 17:40, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Earlier Military Service
Neither his sketch in the Dictionary of National Biography nor the more recent Oxford DNB mention he served in the Scots Guards (1918-19) according to Who Was Who, Burke's Peerage and Kelly's Handbook. I will mention this in this article with citation to Kelly's Handbook. What is not clear is whether he saw service abroad (particularly front-line) or if it was entirely home-based, or what rank he served to, given his age at the time. It would be interesting to see a photo of him (say in his judicial robes) after World War II clearly depicting any medals he held.Cloptonson (talk) 12:29, 27 April 2013 (UTC)


 * I don't know the answer, but the minimum age for service abroad was dropped from 19 to 18.5 during the manpower crisis early in 1918 (there were a great many 18 year old soldiers held back in Britain). So he still would have been too young at the time of the armistice, unless I'm wrong. He may have served in the army of occupation in Germany into 1919.Paulturtle (talk) 05:06, 6 November 2016 (UTC)

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Degree
It can hardly be stated as an absolute fact that his third class was due to his interest in politics. II have added the word "perhaps". 22:45, 18 March 2018 (UTC)Seadowns (talk)

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Little couplet
"The nearest thing to death in life is David Patrick Maxwell-Fyfe"

Anyone remember who said this? Paulturtle (talk) 22:45, 11 February 2024 (UTC)