Maurice Gwyer

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Sir Maurice Gwyer(extreme right).

Sir Maurice Linford Gwyer, GCIE, KCB, KCSI, KC (25 April 1878 – 12 October 1952) was Vice Chancellor of Delhi University (1938-1950), and Chief Justice of India (1937–43). Sir Maurice was educated at Highgate School.[1][2] He is credited with having founded the prestigious college Miranda House in the year 1948 in Delhi,India.

He was born in London on 25 April 1878, the eldest son of John Edward Gwyer, public auditor and secretary of the Provident Clerks' Life Assurance Association, and his wife, Edith Linford. His sister, Barbara Elizabeth Gwyer, was principal of St Hugh's College, Oxford (1924–46). Educated at Westminster School and Christ Church, Oxford, he took a first in classical moderations (1899) and a second in literae humaniores (1901). He was elected to a prize fellowship at All Souls in 1902 and took a first in bar finals. Called by the Inner Temple in 1903, he became a pupil of Frank MacKinnon. However, Gwyer's future did not lie in the high-class commercial work for which MacKinnon's chambers were renowned or in the rough and tumble of circuit life. In 1912 Warren Fisher, after an intensive search for the right man, invited Gwyer to join the legal staff of the National Health Insurance Commission and (although tempted to return to the bar after the war) he remained in the public service for the rest of his working life.

In 1906 Gwyer married Alsina Helen Marion (d. 1953), daughter of Sir Henry Charles Burdett, philanthropist; they had one son and two daughters. Alsina became an invalid and Gwyer's initial reluctance to accept appointment in 1919 as legal adviser and solicitor to the Ministry of Health may have been in part attributable to his wish to ensure financial stability for her and the family. In fact on Sir Henry Burdett's death in 1920 she inherited the firm that published the Nursing Mirror, and, in conjunction with his All Souls colleague Sir Geoffrey Cust Faber, the Gwyers set up the company that eventually became Faber and Faber. The Gwyers withdrew after the sale of the Nursing Mirror.

The Ministry of Health had been created by statute only after a long and fierce Whitehall battle, and had wide responsibilities, extending not only to public health but also to housing; and the legislation required to implement the ambitious ‘homes for heroes’ policies enthusiastically adopted by Christopher Addison was complex, highly technical, and often contentious. Gwyer's clear reasoning and consummate drafting skills enabled him to meet the challenge; and, over a politically turbulent seven-year period, he rendered signal service to no fewer than six ministers.

Gwyer acquired a formidable reputation. In 1926 he was appointed Treasury solicitor (in effect, the head of the government legal service) and his talents were deployed over the whole range of public administration. In 1928 he was plunged into what was politically an extremely sensitive matter. Allegations had been made in the course of litigation suggesting that senior Foreign Office officials had taken advantage of their knowledge to speculate in foreign currencies; and these broadened to suggest that one senior official had manipulated the publication of the so-called Zinoviev letter so as to ensure the defeat of the Labour government in the general election of 1924 and thereby facilitate a spectacularly profitable foreign currency coup. These allegations were examined by a special board of enquiry composed of Gwyer, Fisher, and the auditor-general (Sir Malcolm Ramsay). In less than a month the board carried out a meticulous and detailed examination of the evidence. While the broader charges were demonstrated to lack foundation, the board was satisfied that the admitted transactions should never have been undertaken by a civil servant. Although there had been no breach of trust or betrayal of confidence, the board forcefully asserted the obligation on civil servants so to order their private affairs as to avoid any suspicion of impropriety. The report (mostly written by Gwyer) emphasized the importance of the ‘instinct and perception of the individual’ as against ‘cast-iron formulas’.

After the emotional pressures of this enquiry into failures by civil service colleagues (two of whom lost their jobs as a result) Gwyer may have found it a relief to serve on the royal commission on London squares established because of well-founded fears that the green squares of Bloomsbury and Kensington might be sold for housing development. Although the legal position was obscure and the technical demands correspondingly great, there was little dispute about the merits. Gwyer's most lasting achievement as Treasury solicitor was in connection with the conference on the operation of dominion legislation which drafted what became in 1931 the Statute of Westminster, a title which he suggested. The conference described the proposed legislation in words characteristic of Gwyer as an association of constitutional conventions with law … [which] has provided a means of harmonizing relations where a purely legal solution of practical problems was impossible, would have impaired free development, or would have failed to catch the spirit which gives life to institutions.

Gwyer took silk in 1930 and in 1934 was appointed to succeed Sir William Graham-Harrison as first parliamentary counsel to the Treasury. Gwyer's appointment was not at first welcomed by the small group of highly gifted lawyers in the parliamentary counsel office: he had never (one of them recorded) ‘drafted an Act of Parliament in his life and was patently too old to learn’. But this initial hostility soon ‘melted away in the warmth and charm of Gwyer's personality’ (Kent, 51). Gwyer's profound learning—he had edited Sir William Anson's Law and Custom of the Constitution: Parliament (1922) and between 1910 and 1923 taken responsibility for four editions of Anson's Law of Contract, and he had been lecturer in private international law at Oxford and the first British delegate to the Hague Conference on Private International Law — also won the respect of the counsel, as did his ability to negotiate greatly improved terms of service for them from the Treasury. The most substantial legislative monument of Gwyer's term of office is the Government of India Act of 1935. The act's 478 sections and 16 schedules covered more pages of the statute book than any previous act.

It seems that Gwyer saw himself as presiding over a team of draftsmen, ‘only dealing personally with matters of high policy or problems of presentation in the sensitive political areas’ (Kent, 51). But in November 1936 Edward VIII's wish to marry Wallis Simpson precipitated a major constitutional crisis. Gwyer played an important part, advising on difficult and unprecedented issues of constitutional law and practice: for example, was the cabinet entitled to advise the king on the propriety of the marriage? What would be the position if the king refused to take any advice offered? What was the position of the dominions (whose consent to legislation affecting the crown was required by the Statute of Westminster)? Gwyer's calm and skilful handling of these vitally important technical issues was an important factor in enabling His Majesty's Declaration of Abdication Act 1936 to become law on 11 December 1936—coincidentally shortly after Gwyer's appointment as chief justice of the Federal Court of India had been announced.

The 1935 Government of India Act had been intended to establish responsible government for both the provinces and for an all-India federation. But the pressures for full independence were such that the provisions for federation never came into effect. For this reason, although Gwyer was duly sworn in on 1 October 1937 and the federal court sat for the first time in the Prince's Chamber, New Delhi, in December, there was at first little business for the court to handle. Cases from the eleven provinces did begin to come to the court; and the Federal Court Reports fairly indicate Gwyer's broadly liberal approach. He regarded the court's existence as demonstrating that the Indian nation was ‘on the march’; and his assurances that the British people wished to promote the constitutional development of India may have had some impact.

The fact that the chief justice had at first little judicial work allowed him, with encouragement from the viceroy, to take in hand the reform of the University of Delhi; Gwyer was appointed vice-chancellor in 1938. Despite ill health he continued in that office until 1950. He lived in style, and almost from the first his house in Delhi became a place of meeting for a large circle, both British and Indian. He knew everybody and all that was going on. He travelled widely but some of his visits to princely states with which the government was having difficulties caused embarrassment.

Gwyer, a ‘man of monumental physical proportions and genial aspect’ as one of his colleagues was to describe him, had a distinguished presence (Kent, 51). Good living he enjoyed—and good company; Maurice Gwyer would have been at ease in Dr Johnson's circle. He was by nature tolerant, and sometimes conveyed a misleading impression of indolence. He was certainly ready to see redeeming features, but drew a rigid line between frailty and vice.

Gwyer was appointed CB (1921), KCB (1928), KCSI (1935), and GCIE (1948). He became an honorary student of Christ Church (1937), an honorary DCL of Oxford (1939), LLD of Travancore (1943) and Patna (1944), and DLitt of Delhi (1950). He died at his home, 14 Kepplestone, Eastbourne, Sussex, on 12 October 1952, and was buried at St Marylebone cemetery, East Finchley, on 17 October.

Faber and Gwyer

Faber and Faber began as a firm in 1929. However, its roots go back further - to The Scientific Press, which was founded in the early years of the 20th century. This last firm was owned by Sir Maurice and Lady Gwyer and derived much of its income from the weekly magazine the Nursing Mirror. The Gwyers' desire to expand into trade publishing led them to Geoffrey Faber, a fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, and Faber and Gwyer was founded in 1925. After four years, the Nursing Mirror was sold and Geoffrey Faber and the Gwyers agreed to go their separate ways. Searching for a name with a ring of respectability, Geoffrey hit on the name Faber and Faber, although there was only ever one Faber.

References

  1. ↑ Chhatra, G.S. (2007). Advanced Study in the History of Modern India. Lotus Press. p. 90. ISBN 81-89093-08-8. 
  2. ↑ "SIR MAURICE GWYER". New york Times. October 14, 1952. 

Further reading

  • Records on Sir Maurice Gwyer are available in the British Library, Asia, Pacific and Africa Collections (previously Oriental and India Office Library) - papers (0304/09)

External links

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