Eric Sachs

Sir Eric Leopold Otho Sachs PC MBE TD (23 July 1898 – 1 September 1979) was a British barrister and judge. He was a High Court judge from 1954 to 1966 and then a Lord Justice of Appeal until 1973.

Sachs was born in London. His father was an architect, and his grandfather had emigrated from Germany to England. Sachs was educated at Charterhouse School and served as a gunnery officer in the Royal Artillery in the First World War, from 1917 to 1919, receiving wounds to his left hand. After being demobilised, he read law at Christ Church, Oxford, graduating after five terms in 1920.

He was called to the bar at the Middle Temple in 1921, and was a pupil barrister under Wilfrid Lewis. He practised on the Oxford circuit and in London, and became a King's Counsel in 1938. He was also appointed Recorder of Dudley in 1938.

He served in the staff of the adjutant-general in the War Office in the Second World War, starting as a second lieutenant but rapidly promoted to brigadier. He was appointed MBE in 1941 for his war work. He transferred to political warfare - part of intelligence - in 1942 and was seconded to the Foreign Office to produced handbooks on the administration of the territories to be liberated by the Allies.

Demobilised again in 1945, he returned to legal practice as a barrister. He led a team of barristers that collaborated with Sydney Littlewood and other solicitors from the Law Society in formulating the legal aid scheme created under the Legal Aid and Advice Act 1949. He became a bencher at Middle Temple in 1947 and served as Treasurer in 1967, reforming the inn's governance and finances. He was Gresham Professor of Law from 1946 to 1950.

In addition to his legal practice, he continued with part-time judicial office, serving as a Commissioner of Assize and investigating allegations of corruption in the Gold Coast in 1946. He was Recorder of Stoke-on-Trent from 1943 to 1954, and leader of the Oxford circuit in 1953 and 1954. He was appointed to the High Court bench in 1954 and received the customary knighthood, joining the Probate, Divorce and Admiralty Division. He was transferred to the Queen's Bench Division in 1960, and was promoted to the Court of Appeal in 1966, also joining the Privy Council. Amongst other cases, he heard and dismissed the appeal of the students convicted after the Garden House riot in 1970. He became increasingly deaf in his later years and retired in 1973, but continued to sit as a judge occasionally. Among his later cases were British Crane Hire Corporation Ltd v Ipswich Plant Hire Ltd in 1973 and Lloyds Bank Ltd v Bundy in 1974.

In 1934, he married Janet Margaret Goddard (d.2005), daughter of Rayner Goddard, later Baron Goddard and Lord Chief Justice of England from 1946 to 1958. He retired to East Sussex, and died at home in Wadhurst after an operation. He was survived by his wife, and their son and daughter.

References

• Obituary of Lady Sachs, The Times, 31 December 2005
• Roskill, ‘Sachs, Sir Eric Leopold Otho (1898–1979)’, rev. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 accessed 9 July 2012
• Sir Eric Leopold Otho Sachs, National Portrait Gallery
• Obituary of Sir Eric Sachs, The Times, 16 November 1979; pg. VII; Issue 60476; col D