Sir Thomas Edward Scrutton was an English legal text-writer and a judge of considerable eminence.
Background
Thomas Edward Scrutton was born in London, the son of Thomas Urquhart Scrutton, a wealthy shipowner and head of the well-known shipping firm of Scrutton and Company He studied as a scholar at Trinity College, Cambridge, then at University College London.
Education
University College London. Trinity College.
Career
After an outstanding academic career he developed a busy practice in commercial cases, and wrote The Contract of Affreightment as Expressed in Charter-parties and Bills of Lading (1886), in which he was able to draw on his knowledge of the family business as well as his legal training. Over a century later, this is still the standard text, while several of his other legal works, especially that on copyright, remain useful. He was a judge of the King"s Bench Division (1910-1916) and of the Court of Appeal (1916-1934).
He frequently sat in the Court of Appeal with Bankes and Atkin LJJ, a combination which has often been cited as one of the strongest benches ever to sit in commercial cases.
On the criminal side he presided over the celebrated 1915 "Brides-in-the-Bath" trial of George Joseph Smith, and made a crucial ruling on "similar fact evidence": Smith was charged with murdering only one of his recent brides by drowning her in the bath, but Scrutton ruled that the fact that two of his other brides had died in almost identical circumstances was admissible as evidence of a method or pattern of murder. Despite his great ability, Scrutton had a reputation as a difficult judge to appear before: "he did not suffer fools gladly, and often refused to suffer them at all" was one verdict.
His stern appearance and sweeping beard (he is said never to have shaved) intimidated most of those who appeared before him. His intolerance extended even to other judges, particularly the flamboyant and controversial Sir Henry McCardie whom he openly despised, and whom he attacked with increasing bitterness until their mutual antipathy resulted in a public quarrel.
McCardie committed suicide soon afterwards, but the cause is generally thought to have been depression, unconnected to the quarrel.
In his later years he is said to have mellowed considerably: Henry Cecil, the judge and humourist, recalled in his memoir Just Within the Law that Scrutton, in the only case Cecil argued in front of him, had been perfectly polite, although he could not resist one dry comment that a barrister who feels that he must repeat every point four times cannot have much opinion of the Court"s intelligence.