25 Facts About Glanville Williams

Glanville Williams has been described as Britain's foremost scholar of criminal law.

Glanville Williams attended Cowbridge Grammar School from 1923 to 1927.

Glanville Williams obtained a First in law at University College of Wales.

Glanville Williams was called to the Bar and became a member of Middle Temple in 1935.

Glanville Williams was a Research Fellow from 1936 to 1942 and completed his Doctor of Philosophy degree in law at St John's College, Cambridge, where he was examined by the Vinerian Professor of English Law at Oxford, Sir William Searle Holdsworth, who was at the time, a Fellow of St John's College, Oxford.

Glanville Williams was well into his seventies when he wrote the 1983 volume.

Glanville Williams published article after article in top refereed journals, even in his eighties.

Glanville Williams was arguably the greatest legal thinker of the twentieth century.

Glanville Williams's groundbreaking Criminal Law: The General Part is a classic still widely read and cited.

Nowadays Glanville Williams is best known as a writer on criminal law, where his fame rests on four books, the influence of which has been enormous.

Glanville Williams's influential law book Learning the Law, as of 2023 in its seventeenth edition, is a critically acclaimed and popular introductory text for legal undergraduates, dubbing itself "Guide, Philosopher and Friend".

Glanville Williams then moved to the University of Cambridge and was a Fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge, and a Reader in Law from 1957 to 1965, then Professor of English Law from 1966 to 1968.

Glanville Williams then became the Rouse Ball Professor of English Law from 1968 to 1978.

Glanville Williams was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 1957.

Glanville Williams covered an even wider range of topics in the huge number of articles which, astonishingly, he found the time to write.

Glanville Williams was a convinced utilitarian, who held that punishment was an evil to be avoided unless there was a good reason for imposing it, and for whom "good reasons" meant the well-being of society, not the tenets of religious belief.

Hence Leon Radzinowicz's celebrated bon mot about him: "Glanville Williams is the illegitimate child of Jeremy Bentham".

Glanville Williams devoted many hours over several decades to serving on a range of official committees, in particular the Criminal Law Revision Committee, of which he was a member from 1959 to 1980.

Glanville Williams took a major part in the campaign to liberalise the law on abortion, which largely succeeded with the Abortion Act 1967.

Glanville Williams was very active in the campaign to legalise voluntary euthanasia, which has so far largely failed.

Glanville Williams was both president of the Abortion Law Reform Association, and a vice-president of the Voluntary Euthanasia Society.

Glanville Williams was very supportive throughout their careers to a number of his junior colleagues.

Glanville Williams was brought up in a pious Congregationalist family in South Wales, and much of his background stayed with him.

The Jesus College, University of Cambridge Glanville Williams Society meets each year and is attended by over 600 leading Welsh lawyers and their English friends.

Many people who knew Glanville Williams personally were reportedly fooled by the hoax.