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John Sankey, 1st Viscount Sankey
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John Sankey, 1st Viscount Sankey
John Sankey, 1st Viscount Sankey (26 October 1866 – 6 February 1948) was a British lawyer, judge, Labour politician and Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain, famous for many of his judgments in the House of Lords. He gave his name to the Sankey Declaration of the Rights of Man (1940).
He was the son of Thomas Sankey, a grocer of Moreton-in-Marsh, Gloucestershire, by his second wife Catalina (née Dewsbury). Sankey's father died when he was 8 years old, when the family moved to Castle Road (now City Road) in Roath, Cardiff. Sankey was educated at a local Anglican school, and with the financial support of an Anglican clergyman he attended Lancing College, a public school in Sussex. He studied at Jesus College, Oxford, graduating with a second-class BA in Modern History in 1889, and a third-class Bachelor of Civil Law degree in 1891. He was called to the Bar at Middle Temple in 1892.
Sankey began his practice as a barrister in south Wales, later specialising in workmen's compensation cases. In 1909 he was appointed a King's Counsel.
Sankey became a judge of the High Court, King's Bench Division, in 1914. In 1919, Prime Minister David Lloyd George appointed him to chair the Sankey Commission into the coal industry, which recommended a seven-hour day for miners and the nationalisation of the industry. He was appointed a Lord Justice of Appeal in 1928.
On Labour's victory in the 1929 general election, Sankey was appointed Lord Chancellor by Ramsay MacDonald, and was raised to the peerage as Baron Sankey, of Moreton in the County of Gloucester. He was one of the few Labour politicians to follow MacDonald into the National Government in 1931, and served as Lord Chancellor until 1935, when Stanley Baldwin re-entered office. In 1932 he was created Viscount Sankey, of Moreton in the County of Gloucester.
Several of his judgments in the House of Lords have become landmark statements of law. Sankey's judgment in Woolmington v DPP [1935] AC 462 is famous for iterating the duty inherent on the prosecution to prove the prisoner's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. In pertinent part, his judgment stated:
Throughout the web of the English criminal law one golden thread is always to be seen – that it is the duty of the prosecution to prove the prisoner's guilt subject to what I have already said as to the defence of insanity and subject also to any statutory exception...
This judgment is usually referred to as the "golden thread".[citation needed]
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John Sankey, 1st Viscount Sankey
John Sankey, 1st Viscount Sankey (26 October 1866 – 6 February 1948) was a British lawyer, judge, Labour politician and Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain, famous for many of his judgments in the House of Lords. He gave his name to the Sankey Declaration of the Rights of Man (1940).
He was the son of Thomas Sankey, a grocer of Moreton-in-Marsh, Gloucestershire, by his second wife Catalina (née Dewsbury). Sankey's father died when he was 8 years old, when the family moved to Castle Road (now City Road) in Roath, Cardiff. Sankey was educated at a local Anglican school, and with the financial support of an Anglican clergyman he attended Lancing College, a public school in Sussex. He studied at Jesus College, Oxford, graduating with a second-class BA in Modern History in 1889, and a third-class Bachelor of Civil Law degree in 1891. He was called to the Bar at Middle Temple in 1892.
Sankey began his practice as a barrister in south Wales, later specialising in workmen's compensation cases. In 1909 he was appointed a King's Counsel.
Sankey became a judge of the High Court, King's Bench Division, in 1914. In 1919, Prime Minister David Lloyd George appointed him to chair the Sankey Commission into the coal industry, which recommended a seven-hour day for miners and the nationalisation of the industry. He was appointed a Lord Justice of Appeal in 1928.
On Labour's victory in the 1929 general election, Sankey was appointed Lord Chancellor by Ramsay MacDonald, and was raised to the peerage as Baron Sankey, of Moreton in the County of Gloucester. He was one of the few Labour politicians to follow MacDonald into the National Government in 1931, and served as Lord Chancellor until 1935, when Stanley Baldwin re-entered office. In 1932 he was created Viscount Sankey, of Moreton in the County of Gloucester.
Several of his judgments in the House of Lords have become landmark statements of law. Sankey's judgment in Woolmington v DPP [1935] AC 462 is famous for iterating the duty inherent on the prosecution to prove the prisoner's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. In pertinent part, his judgment stated:
Throughout the web of the English criminal law one golden thread is always to be seen – that it is the duty of the prosecution to prove the prisoner's guilt subject to what I have already said as to the defence of insanity and subject also to any statutory exception...
This judgment is usually referred to as the "golden thread".[citation needed]
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