Sydney Templeman, Baron Templeman

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Sydney William Templeman, Baron Templeman, MBE, PC, was a British judge.

He served as a Lord of Appeal in Ordinary from 1982 to 1994 in the House of Lords and was additionally made a life peer as Baron Templeman, of White Lackington in the County of Somerset.

Lord Templeman was undoubtedly an enormously capable lawyer who contributed immensely to English law during his time as a judge, not only within his specialist field of intellectual property. English cases in which Lord Templeman gave speeches which fundamentally influenced the direction of English law include:

Street v Mountford [1985] AC 809
R v Brown [1994] 1 AC 212
Attorney General for Hong Kong v Reid [1994] 1 AC 324, [1994] 1 NZLR 1 (PC)
China and South Sea Bank v Tan [1990] 1 AC 536
Gillick v West Norfolk Area Health Authority [1985] A.C. 112

Lord Templeman, who might fairly be said to be of judicially conservative inclination, also gave leading speeches upholding orthodox doctrine against calls for reform in the important land law cases of Prudential Assurance Co Ltd v London Residuary Body [1992] 2 AC 386 and Rhone v Stephens [1994] 2 AC 310. He was one of the dissenting judges in the famous case of Gillick v West Norfolk and Wisbech AHA [1986] AC 112, arguing, inter alia, that "there are many things a girl under 16 needs to practice but sex is not one of them."

He sponsored the Land Registration Act 1988, which led to the land register of England and Wales being open to the public for the first time in 1990.

Prior to his elevation to the House of Lords, he also made significant contribution to English jurisprudence sitting at first instance in EMI Limited v Pandit [1975] 1 All ER 418 when he granted the first Anton Piller order in English legal history.

Also prior to his capacity as a judge, Sydney Templeman QC was an eminent barrister. One notable case which he worked on was the case of Anisminic Ltd v Foreign Compensation Commission [1969] 2 AC 147 where he was counsel for the respondents (the Foreign Compensation Commission).

Lord Templeman has two sons, Peter and Michael (the latter a barrister), and one of his nephews, Anthony John Templeman, is a Justice of the Supreme Court of Western Australia.