Celebrate the life: Master Anthony Lloyd

There is so much to say about Tony Lloyd, Lord Lloyd of Berwick, and his long and distinguished career, that you will not be surprised that I have had to be extremely selective. So many of you here will have seen him in different contexts. I thought I knew him well until I started to realise while writing this tribute how much I did not know.

It might be said that Tony sailed through life, and everything came easily to him. He had a formidable personality: clever, athletic, charming and delightful to meet. He was also hard working, a good lawyer and much concerned with justice and fairness throughout his career. He stuck to things he believed in and persisted in supporting them. He also had a great sense of humour and mischief. Unfortunately, no one will give me a repeatable example of his mischievous side. He was summed up very appropriately by one of his nephews as having a joie de vivre.

Born on 9 May 1929, Tony was a King’s Scholar at Eton and later became a Trustee of the College. In Douglas Hurd’s memoirs he refers to his friendship with Tony at Eton. He was Douglas Hurd’s main competitor, and they had “an affectionate rivalry with frequent ructions in the early years”. I heard from Nick Hurd that Tony would take him and his brother as children in a silver sports Sunbeam Alpine along the Sussex lanes at 100 miles an hour.

In 1948, Tony was commissioned into the Coldstream Guards. After his service in the Army, he went on to Trinity College, Cambridge where he read Law. It was there that he got a Blue running the mile for Cambridge and, I am told, ran against Roger Bannister. He also became a Law Fellow and, later, an Honorary Fellow at Peterhouse and a Choate Scholar at Harvard.

Tony was called to the Bar by The Inner Temple in 1955 and went on to practise in maritime and commercial law at No 3 Essex Court. He took Silk in 1967 and served as a Judge of the Queen’s Bench Division from 1978–1984 and as a Lord Justice of Appeal from 1984–1993, when he became a Law Lord, Privy Counsellor and life peer. He remained active in the House of Lords as a Crossbencher until his retirement in 2015.

At the Bar he took on other commitments such as becoming Attorney General to the Prince of Wales, now His Majesty King Charles III. While at the Court of Appeal he was also the Interception of Communications Commissioner.

Tony was very determined and, when necessary, courageous. In a case brought by a Home Secretary which went to the Judicial Committee, Tony was the only one of all the judges who heard the case who supported the Home Secretary. After hearing an appeal on an intellectual property case concerned with teddy bears, he kept the teddy bear exhibit.

While he was on the Bench, he was largely responsible for the setting up of the Judicial Studies Board, now the Judicial College.

In 1960, he married Jane; they had a long and happy marriage, though the absence of children was a great sadness for them, but always with them were one, sometimes two, dogs whom they adored. Jane, a strong personality herself is very kind, gentle and generous. She was Tony’s anchor, and he relied on her commonsense and support throughout their married life. She kept him grounded and he was very proud of her becoming High Sheriff of East Sussex.

Tony was also the best possible uncle to his nephews and nieces, giving some of them grand lunches before their return to boarding school and taking them skiing.

As a Crossbencher and a regular attender in the House of Lords, he was a member of and chaired various committees including the Select Committee on the Speakership and the Ecclesiastical Committee.

Among many other commitments, he was Chair of the Security Commission, Vice Chair of the Parole Board, Vice Chair of the Top Salaries Review Body, Vice President of the Maritime Law Association and Master of the Salters’ Company where he and Jane were much involved in the company’s charitable work.

As Chair of the Inquiry into Legislation against terrorism he suggested that the task was to try to bring potential terrorists over to our side.

Alf Morris, The Lord Morris of Manchester, campaigned for veterans of the First Gulf War. He persuaded Tony to chair the Inquiry into Gulf War Syndrome in 2004. Many of those who served in the first Gulf War became ill from causes which the Ministry of Defence did not understand and would not accept the medical consequences. Tony’s conclusions were typically clear and robust. He told the government to acknowledge publicly that the veterans who made claims were suffering injury or disease as a result of their service in the first Gulf War and to pay compensation. In his speech in the Lords on the report, Lord Morris congratulated Tony and said, “Scrupulously fair and balanced in its judgment, his report’s conclusions are presented with excelling clarity and a relentless and compelling logic. Its purpose is not to apportion blame but to end deadlock and, by unravelling the truth, to let right be done.”

Tony’s valedictory speech in the Lords was based on his campaign to help prisoners held on indeterminate sentences.

Tony was elected as a Bencher of The Inner Temple in 1976, becoming Treasurer in 1999. He retired as a Law Lord in order to become Treasurer and gave it his full attention. He said it was the happiest year of his professional life. As Master of the Pictures, he once said of the rather severe portrait of Elizabeth Lane in the Inn’s collection, that he would write on the back that she was female.

Tony and Jane had a flat in The Inner Temple and, until last year, regularly attended the Temple Church. Tony was also very attached to the Diocese of Chichester where he was Chair of the Diocesan Board of Finance.

Tony was Vice President of the Sons of the Clergy and a member of the Bishop’s Council.

Tony and Jane much enjoyed music: he was an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Academy of Music (RAM) and Chair of Glyndebourne Arts Committee. He and Jane regularly went to the Wigmore Hall. As he became deafer his voice could be heard across the Hall when he arrived for a concert. He was also a trustee of Henry Smith’s Charity.

Tony was a generous supporter of many institutions such as Eton, Trinity and Peterhouse, Cambridge and the Salters’ Company. He also was generous to Glyndebourne the RAM, Chichester Cathedral, the Temple Church and Berwick Church and was known to dress up as Father Christmas for some of his charities.

The Ptolemy column in Church Court with two Knights Templar on a single horse was a gift of Tony and Jane to mark the Millenium.

Alongside the flat in The Inner Temple, Tony and Jane also had an entirely separate life in Sussex. They bought their house many years ago in poor condition and went on to improve it enormously over a 50-year period. They farmed about 50 acres with a special breed of cows and a flock of sheep. Tony told me with pride that they did their own lambing, once, I am told, helped by one of Jane’s nephews.

Tony became a Deputy Lieutenant of East Sussex, Chair of the Sussex Association for Rehabilitation of Offenders and President of the Sussex Downsmen.

Tony was good with his hands and keen on carpentry and bricklaying. He loved a fight, and I am told that there is a large pile of papers referring to his battles against Congestion Charges.

This a very brief summary of a very successful, much respected and loved man who will be remembered by so many whose lives were affected by their contact with him. Elizabeth Roskill said, some 20 years ago, “Dear Tony, such a clever man. If only he had not been such a flibbertigibbet, he might have made something of his career”. You might think he did!

Tony died on 8 December 2024.

The Rt Hon the Baroness Butler-Sloss GBE
Retired Judge, President of the Family Division, 1999–2005
Treasurer of The Inner Temple 1998