1. Travers Christmas Humphreys, QC was a British jurist who prosecuted several controversial cases in the 1940s and 1950s, and who later became a judge at the Old Bailey.
22 Facts About Christmas Humphreys
1. 2.
Christmas Humphreys wrote a number of works on Mahayana Buddhism and in his day was the best-known British convert to Buddhism.
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Christmas Humphreys's former home in St John's Wood, London, is a Buddhist temple.
4.
Christmas Humphreys was an enthusiastic proponent of the Oxfordian theory of Shakespeare authorship.
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Christmas Humphreys's given name "Christmas" is unusual, but, along with "Travers", had a long history in the Humphreys family.
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Christmas Humphreys was educated at Malvern College, where he first became a theosophist, and at Trinity Hall, Cambridge.
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Christmas Humphreys was further influenced in this direction by public lectures presented by JR Pain Charles Henry Allan Bennett, and Francis Payne.
8.
In 1924, Christmas Humphreys founded the London Buddhist Lodge.
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The impetus came from several theosophists with whom Humphreys corresponded, chief among them being Annie Besant and George S Arundale.
10.
In 1945, Christmas Humphreys drafted the Twelve Principles of Buddhism for which he obtained the approval of all the Buddhist sects in Japan, the Supreme Patriarch of Thailand, and leading Buddhists of Ceylon, Burma, China, and Tibet.
11.
Christmas Humphreys later assembled and collated some of Arundale's unpublished works, a collection of which he left to the Theosophical Society on his death in 1983.
12.
Christmas Humphreys was called to the bar by the Inner Temple in 1924.
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Christmas Humphreys became Recorder of Deal in 1942, a part-time judicial post.
14.
At the 1950 trial of the nuclear spy Klaus Fuchs, Christmas Humphreys was the prosecuting counsel for the Attorney General.
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In 1962 Christmas Humphreys became a Commissioner at the Old Bailey.
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Christmas Humphreys was appointed an Additional Judge there in 1968 and served on the bench until his retirement in 1976.
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Christmas Humphreys was a prolific author of books on the Buddhist tradition.
18.
Christmas Humphreys was president of the Shakespeare Fellowship, a position to which he was elected in 1955.
19.
Christmas Humphreys helped found the Ballet Guild in 1941 and acted as its chairman.
20.
In 1962 Christmas Humphreys was appointed Vice-President of the Tibet Society, and made Joint Vice-Chairman of the Royal India, Pakistan and Ceylon Society.
21.
Christmas Humphreys published his autobiography Both Sides of the Circle in 1978.
22.
Christmas Humphreys died of a heart attack at his London home, 58 Marlborough Place, St John's Wood.