86 Facts About Patrick Hastings

Sir Patrick Gardiner Hastings was an English barrister and politician noted for his long and highly successful career as a barrister and his short stint as Attorney General.

Patrick Hastings was educated at Charterhouse School until 1896, when his family moved to continental Europe.

Patrick Hastings first rose to prominence as a result of the Case of the Hooded Man in 1912, and became noted for his skill at cross-examination.

Patrick Hastings was appointed Attorney General for England and Wales in 1924, by the first Labour government, and knighted.

Patrick Hastings's cases included the Savidge Inquiry and the Royal Mail Case, and before his full retirement in 1948 he was one of the highest paid barristers at the English bar.

Patrick Hastings's father was a solicitor with "somewhat seedy clients", and the family were repeatedly bankrupted.

Patrick Hastings disliked school, saying "I hated the bell which drove us up in the morning, I hated the masters; above all I hated the work, which never interested me in the slightest degree".

Patrick Hastings was bullied at both the preparatory school and at Charterhouse, and did not excel at either sports or his studies.

Desperate for a job, Patrick Hastings accepted an apprenticeship with an English engineer who claimed to have made a machine to extract gold in North Wales.

Patrick Hastings left the failed mining operation in 1899, and travelled to London.

The only qualifications required were that the recruit could ride and shoot, and Patrick Hastings immediately applied to join the Suffolk Imperial Yeomanry.

Patrick Hastings did not enjoy his time in the army; the weather was poor, the orders given were confusing and they were provided with minimal equipment.

Patrick Hastings was made a scout, a duty he thoroughly enjoyed; it meant that he got to the targeted farms first, and had time to steal chickens and other food before the Royal Military Police arrived.

Patrick Hastings was not a model soldier; as well as looting, he estimated that by the time he left the army he had "been charged and tried upon almost every offence known to military law".

Patrick Hastings was lucky: the first case he saw involved Rufus Isaacs, Henry Duke and Edward Carson, three of the most distinguished English barristers of the early 20th century.

At the start of the court vacation in August 1904, Patrick Hastings decided that it would be best to find a tenancy in a more prestigious set of chambers; Corbet dealt with only two or three cases a year, and solicitors were unlikely to give briefs to a barrister of whom they had never heard.

Patrick Hastings would be able to improve his career through an association with Gill, but Gill did not actually know Patrick Hastings and had no reason to offer him a place in his chambers.

Patrick Hastings decided he would spend the court vacation writing a law book, and introduce himself to Gill by asking if he would mind having the book dedicated to him.

Patrick Hastings wrote the book on the subject of the law relating to money-lending, something he knew very little about.

Patrick Hastings got around this by including large extracts from the judgements in cases related to money-lending, which increased the size of the book and reduced how much he would actually have to write.

Patrick Hastings finished the book just before the court vacation ended, and presented the draft to Gill immediately.

Patrick Hastings spent hours writing notes and "did everything to the brief except set it to music", before returning it to a pleased Gill, who let him take away another brief.

Patrick Hastings's marriage changed his outlook on life: he now realised that to provide for his wife he would need to work a lot harder at getting cases.

Patrick Hastings approached Gill and asked him for a place in his chambers.

Smith, and Patrick Hastings went to see him with a letter of recommendation from Gill.

Smith was out and Patrick Hastings instead spoke to his clerk; the two did not get on, and Patrick Hastings left without securing a place.

Patrick Hastings later described this as "the most fortunate moment of my whole career".

Patrick Hastings immediately went to Avory's clerk and got him to introduce him to Avory.

Patrick Hastings instead had the idea that he could take over Avory's chambers himself, allowing him to avoid the trouble of finding a new tenancy.

Patrick Hastings suggested to Avory that Avory could pay the rent, and Patrick Hastings would then pay him back when he had the money.

Patrick Hastings was commended by both the initial judge, Arthur Channell, and the presiding judge hearing the appeal, Lord Alverstone, for his skill in his defence of Williams.

The short length of county court cases and the number of cases Patrick Hastings got meant that he dealt with up to six cases in a single day, running from court to court with his pupils in a "Mafeking procession" which he later described as "the forerunners of the modern Panzer division".

Patrick Hastings himself volunteered to serve in the armed forces, but was rejected as medically unfit.

Patrick Hastings's next noted civil case was that of Gruban v Booth.

Patrick Hastings accused Bersey and others of promoting this "rife immorality" and not having the best interests of the WRAF at heart.

Patrick Hastings destroyed Sievier's reputation in cross-examination, and the jury decided in Wootton's favour.

Patrick Hastings represented Christabel Russell in the initial trial at the High Court and lost; the decision was appealed to the Court of Appeal, where he again lost.

Patrick Hastings did not represent Christabel Russell in the House of Lords case because by this point he was already Attorney General.

Patrick Hastings first became involved in politics after the First World War, when he joined the Liberal Party to help improve social conditions for the poorer people of the United Kingdom.

Patrick Hastings was being prepared to be the Liberal candidate for Ilford in the 1918 general election but grew disheartened by the Liberal alliance with the Conservative Party, and by the divisions in the party; as a result, he gave up the candidacy.

Beatrice Webb was later to write in her diaries that Patrick Hastings was "without any sincerely held public purpose" and "an unpleasant type of clever pleader and political arriviste, who jumped into the Labour Party just before the 1922 election, when it had become clear that the Labour Party was the alternative government and it had not a single lawyer of position attached to it".

However Patrick Hastings was returned for Wallsend with a majority of 2,823 in the 1922 general election.

Clynes, and Patrick Hastings, who supported MacDonald, persuaded six new MPs to support him.

MacDonald was elected by a margin of only five votes, and Patrick Hastings later regretted his support.

Patrick Hastings was indeed Labour's only experienced barrister in the House of Commons at that time, and immediately became a frontbencher and the party's main spokesman on legal matters.

Patrick Hastings made his debut speech on 22 February 1923 against the Rent Restrictions Bill, an amendment to the Rent Act 1921.

Patrick Hastings attacked it as "a monstrous piece of legislation", and was repeatedly shouted down by Conservative MPs as a "traitor to his class".

Patrick Hastings immediately stood and protested, saying that the act was "one of the most dreadful things that has been done in the history of our country" and that the internments and deportations were effectively illegal.

Patrick Hastings argued that because the Irish Free State was an independent nation the British laws governing it, such as the Restoration of Order in Ireland Act 1920, were effectively repealed.

Patrick Hastings attempted to argue that the writ could be issued against the Home Secretary but this failed, since the Home Secretary did not actually possess O'Brien.

Three days later, Patrick Hastings took the case to the Court of Appeal, who declared that the internment orders were invalid since the Restoration of Order in Ireland Act 1920 was no longer applicable.

Patrick Hastings hesitated before accepting the appointment, despite the knighthood and appointment as head of the bar that came with the post, and later said that "if I had known what the next year was to bring forward I should almost certainly have [declined]".

Patrick Hastings's working hours were regularly between 7am and 5am the following morning, and the policemen on duty at the House of Commons complained to him that he was working too long, since they were required to stay on duty as long as he was.

In 1924 Patrick Hastings became involved in the Campbell Case, a prosecution which eventually led to the downfall of the Labour government.

Patrick Hastings approved the prosecution of the newspaper's editor, JR Campbell, for violating the Incitement to Mutiny Act 1797.

Patrick Hastings himself read out a reply, which said that the Director of Public Prosecutions had complained that the article was inciting troops to mutiny.

The next day Patrick Hastings called for both the Solicitor General, Sir Henry Slesser, and Jimmy Maxton, to ask their opinion on the prosecution.

MacDonald blamed the Director of Public Prosecutions for starting the case, although Patrick Hastings intervened and admitted to Macdonald that it was entirely his fault.

The Prime Minister said that he felt they should go through with the case now they had started, but Patrick Hastings suggested that a member of the Treasury Counsel appear at Bow Street Magistrates' Court and withdraw the prosecution.

Patrick Hastings would accept all the blame and resign as Attorney General, and in exchange MacDonald and the rest of the cabinet would speak for Patrick Hastings at the resulting by-election.

Patrick Hastings refused the general suggestion, but planned to make a speech at the upcoming debate explaining his actions.

Patrick Hastings's speech took over an hour, and was frequently interrupted by Conservative MPs.

Patrick Hastings's speech quieted the Conservatives and made it clear that a censure for the entire Parliament was going to be difficult for the Whips to enforce.

MacDonald consulted with Jimmy Thomas and Patrick Hastings and decided to reject the offer.

Patrick Hastings was embittered by the disaster, and considered immediately quitting politics altogether, although he did not do so.

Patrick Hastings's plight was depicted on the cover of Time Magazine, along with a quotation from his speech.

Patrick Hastings was again returned for Wallsend at the ensuing election, despite the crisis caused by the Zinoviev letter, although with a reduced majority.

Patrick Hastings was next involved in United Diamond Fields of British Guiana Ltd v Joel and Others, which he considered both his most difficult and most interesting case.

Patrick Hastings used Oppenheimer as a technical adviser, and immediately arranged to have its diamonds sold to the syndicate.

The first witness called was Coen himself, who Patrick Hastings later described as "the best witness without exception that I have ever seen in the witness-box".

Patrick Hastings was interviewed over seven days by Hastings, then Bevan and then Birkett.

In 1931, Patrick Hastings represented John Morland in the Royal Mail Case.

Patrick Hastings was persuaded to take the case by his wife who remembered that their children had shared a governess who had cared for "dear little Elvira".

Patrick Hastings appeared at the Magistrates' Court, where he cross-examined the forensic scientist Sir Bernard Spilsbury and at a three-day trial in the Old Bailey where Hastings was described by Peter Cotes in his book about the case as "the star performer".

When Patrick Hastings rose to cross-examine, he took up the gun, pointed it to the ceiling and repeatedly pulled the trigger over and over again.

One crown witness had said that on another occasion she saw Elvira Barney firing the gun while holding it in her left hand; when he called his client Patrick Hastings had the gun placed in front of her.

Patrick Hastings appeared for Sir Oswald Mosley in several cases during the 1930s, having become friends with him while in Parliament.

Several weeks later, Patrick Hastings represented Mosley and three other members of the British Union of Fascists in a criminal case after they were indicted for "causing a riotous assembly" on 9 October 1934 at a BUF meeting.

Patrick Hastings argued that the defendants had been deliberately provoked by a crowd of civilians, and several witnesses testified that the crowd had been throwing tomatoes and threatening Mosley.

Patrick Hastings, taking the view that the incident was too long in the past to be relevant, did not call any rebutting evidence.

Patrick Hastings desired to have an original work performed and to this end wrote The River over a period of 20 years before taking it to St James's Theatre, where it was accepted and performed in June 1925.

Patrick Hastings retired from most of his work as a barrister in 1938, but soon found a way to occupy himself after the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939.

Although, at fifty-nine, far past the age at which he could join the armed forces, Patrick Hastings wrote to the Secretary of State for War offering his services, and was eventually contacted by Kingsley Wood, the Secretary of State for Air, who offered him a commission in the Royal Air Force as a squadron leader in Administrative and Special Duties Branch, serving with Fighter Command.

Patrick Hastings participated in only a few cases following his war service.

Laski lost the case, unable to counter the questioning from Patrick Hastings which referred to his previous written works.

Patrick Hastings spent the next two years living in a flat in London, before dying on 26 February 1952 of cerebral thrombosis.