The Rt. Hon. Sir Travers Humphreys PC (4 August 1867 – 20 February 1956) was a noted British barrister and judge who, during a sixty year legal career, was involved in the cases of Oscar Wilde, Hawley Harvey Crippen, George Joseph Smith, the 'Brides in the Bath' murderer, and John George Haigh, the 'Acid Bath Murderer'.
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Travers Humphreys was born Richard Somers Travers Christmas Humphreys in Doughty Street in Bloomsbury in London, the fourth son and sixth child of solicitor Charles Octavius Humphreys, and his wife, Harriet Ann (nee Grain), the sister of the entertainer Richard Corney Grain. Humphreys was educated at Shrewsbury School and at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, graduating BA in 1889.[1] He was called to the Bar fom the Inner Temple in 1889 and entered the chambers of E. T. E. Besley, where he concentrated on practice in the criminal courts.
On February 15 1895 Oscar Wilde, Lord Alfred Douglas and Robbie Ross approached Charles Octavius Humphreys with the intention of suing the Marquess of Queensberry, Douglas' father, for criminal libel. Humphreys applied for a warrant for Queensberry's arrest and approached Sir Edward Clark and Charles Willie Mathews to represent Wilde. Travers Humphreys appeared as a Junior Counsel for the prosecution in the subsequent case of Wilde vs Queensbury.[2]
In 1902 Humphreys held a junior brief under H.F. Dickens for the defence of Emma 'Kitty' Byron, who was charged with the murder of Arthur Reginald Baker.[3] Although Byron was convicted, Dickens's defence was so spirited that she was given a reduced prison sentence due to public petition. On 28 May 1896 Humphreys married the actress Zoë Marguerite (1872–1953), the daughter of Henri Philippe Neumans, an artist from Antwerp. In 1895 she had appeared in An Artist's Model with Marie Tempest, Marie Studholme, Letty Lind and Hayden Coffin[4]. They had two sons, the eldest of whom, Richard Grain Humphreys (1897-28 September 1917) was killed in France in the Third Battle of Ypres during World War I[5]; the younger son was the noted barrister and judge Christmas Humphreys, who prosecuted Ruth Ellis for the murder of her lover David Blakely in 1955.[6]
Humphreys was appointed Counsel for the Crown at the Middlesex and North London sessions in 1905, a junior Treasury Counsel ( or 'Treasury Devil') to the Crown at the Central Criminal Court in 1908, and was appointed one of three senior Treasury Counsel in 1916.
In 1910 Humphreys appeared as Junior Counsel in the prosecution of H. H. Crippen for the murder of his wife, Cora Henrietta Crippen; and in 1912 he appeared for the prosecution against Frederick Seddon, who was found guilty of poisoning Eliza Mary Barrow. He appeared for the prosecution at the Old Bailey in 1915 with Archibald Bodkin (later Director of Public Prosecutions) and Cecil Whiteley (later KC) against George Joseph Smith, the 'Brides in the Bath' murderer.[7][8] In 1916 he was one of the team who prosecuted Sir Roger Casement for treason. At the Central Criminal Court in 1922 he successfully prosecuted Horatio Bottomley for fraudulent conversion. Also in 1922 he appeared for the Crown, led by the Solicitor-General Sir Thomas Inskip, against Edith Thompson and Frederick Bywaters, who were jointly charged with the murder of Thompson's husband.
After appointments as Recorder of Chichester, Recorder of Cambridge and Deputy Chairman of London Sessions in 1926, he was made a Judge of the King's Bench Division in 1928.[6]
During the 1940s and early 1950s Humphreys sat in the Court of Criminal Appeal. In this capacity, in 1945 he sat with Lord Chief Justice Lord Goddard and Mr Justice Lynksey to hear William Joyce's appeal against his conviction for treason during World War II. The court rejected Joyce's appeal.[9] In 1949 he presided over the trial of John George Haigh, the Acid Bath Murderer, whom he sentenced to death.
In 1950, he sat with the Lord Chief Justice Lord Goddard and Mr Justice Sellers in the Court of Criminal Appeal to hear the appeal of Timothy Evans against his conviction for the murder of his baby daughter, evidence having also been admitted as to the death of Evans' wife.[5]
He was appointed a Knight Bachelor in 1925 and a Privy Counsellor in 1946. He retired in 1951 as the senior and oldest King's Bench judge. He was a member of the Garrick Club and was a keen yachtsman[6] On his wife's death in 1953 Humphreys sold his Ealing home and moved into the Onslow Court Hotel, in Queen's Gate, South Kensington, which specialised in providing accommodation for retired people. Coincidentally, this was the hotel occupied about four years before by John George Haigh and his victim Mrs Durand-Deacon.[5]
Humphreys was played by Ian Connaughton in the 2003 tv drama The Brides in the Bath; by Frederick Hall in The Edwardians episode 'Horatio Bottomley' (1972); by Raymond Huntley in the On Trial episode 'Horatio Bottomley, MP' (1960); and by John Barron in the 1960 episode 'Sir Roger Casement' in the same series.[10]