It is with regret that Peterhouse announces the death of The Right Honourable Lord Lloyd of Berwick who passed away on 8 December. 

Lord Lloyd of Berwick

Tony Lloyd (Anthony John Leslie Lloyd), who has died aged ninety-five, was an Honorary Fellow of Peterhouse from 1981. This was long after he had been the College’s first Law Fellow under the modern Statutes when he was a Research Fellow from 1953 to 1956. He was the junior Fellow of the College for his first two years, admitted at the same time as another Trinity-man, E.J. Kenney, who liked to remark on this sequence of Seniority. In the years between his Research Fellowship and his Honorary Fellowship he had an extremely distinguished career in the outer world practising Law.

He was called to the Bar in 1955, became an Inner-Temple Bencher in 1976, and, in 1999, that inn’s Treasurer. During his time at the bar, he developed a very successful practice in maritime and commercial law at № 3 Essex Court. In 1967 he took silk; and from 1969 to 1977 he was Attorney-General to H.R.H. The Prince of Wales. In 1978 he added a knighthood to his list of achievements. His success as an advocate, which derived from a sound court-room delivery and manifest sense of fairness, led to his being appointed to the bench, initially as a Judge of the High Court of Justice, Queen’s Bench Division, 1978 to 1984; and then as a Lord Justice of Appeal, 1984 to 1993. In 1993 he became a life peer (Baron Lloyd of Berwick of Ludlay in the County of East Sussex) and was active in the House of Lords until his retirement in 2015. From 1993 to 1999 he was a law lord. Also, from 1984, he was a Privy Counsellor which meant that he sat on panels that heard appeals from the Commonwealth to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council.

He served as: Vice-Chairman of the Parole Board, 1984–85; Chairman of the Security Commission, 1992 to 1999 (Vice-Chairman, 1985 to 1992); a Member of the Criminal Law Revision Committee, 1981; Chairman of the Inquiry into Legislation against Terrorism (reported 1996); Chairman of the Inquiry into Gulf War Illnesses (reported 2004). He was also Chairman of the Sussex Association for Rehabilitation of Offenders, 1985 to 1991. Further, he was President of the Sussex Downsmen, 1995–2004; Vice-President of the British Maritime Law Association, 1983–; Member of the Top Salaries Review Body, 1971 to 1977; Chairman of the House of Lords Select Committee on the Speakership, 2003 to 2005.

His ecclesiastical, charitable, and musical interests appear in other committee work. He was Chairman of the Court of Ecclesiastical Causes Reserved, 1987; he was on the Joint Ecclesiastical Committee, 2003 to 2015; was a Trustee of Smith’s Charity, 1971 to 1994; of Glyndebourne Arts Trust, 1973 to 1994 (Chairman 1975 to 1994; and he lived nearby); he was a Director of the Royal Academy of Music 1979– (Hon. F.R.A.M. 1985); Chairman of the Chichester Diocesan Board of Finance, and Member of the Bishop’s Council, 1972 to 1976; Vice-Pres., Corporation of the Sons of the Clergy, 1997 to 2004. He was an Honorary Member of the Salters’ Company, 1988 (Master, 2000–01).

He served as Deputy Lieutenant East Sussex, 1983.

Honorary degrees came: Honorary LL.D. of the Queen’s University Belfast in 2005 and of the University of Sussex in 2006.

Lloyd was famous for chairing the inquiry into the ‘Gulf-War syndrome’ in 2004 (a privately funded inquiry for which Lloyd received no fee and where he came close to accusing the government of a cover-up). He was firm to see justice done where executive authorities were perceived to suppress the truth. He was widely respected for his command

of terrorism legislation and his upright adherence to the principles of the rule of law. In 2005, after retirement from the bench, he strongly opposed the then government’s attempt to abolish the office of Lord Chancellor.

Lloyd was born a Sussex man on 9 May, 1929; as the only son of Edward John Boydell Lloyd and Leslie Johnston Fleming. In 1960 he married Jane Helen Violet, M.B.E., D.L., elder daughter of C.W. Shelford of Chailey Place, Lewes, Sussex. She survives him. There were no children of the marriage.

He had a first-class education and his academic achievement was commensurate. He was a King’s Scholar at Eton College, of which he was later to be a Fellow from 1974 to 1986. He was admitted as a Major Scholar to Trinity College, Cambridge in 1949. Between Eton and Trinity he did National Service in the 1st Battalion, Coldstream Guards. He had an outstanding undergraduate career. He took a First in Part I of the Classical Tripos in 1951, with marks of ‘Distinction’ in Latin Verse Composition and of ‘Proficiency’ in Greek Verse Composition; and he followed this in 1952 by taking a First with Distinction in Part II of the Law Tripos. As a Classic he won University prizes: in 1950, the Montague Butler Prize (established in 1910 by the Master of Trinity of that name for original Latin hexameter verse); and, in 1951, a Sir William Browne Medal, which he won for an original Latin epigram (founded by a Peterhouse man whose portrait now graces our Hall, Sir William Browne [m. 1707], from 1774 President of the Royal College of Physicians).

After his B.A. Lloyd was Choate Fellow at Harvard, 1952. Further, mens sana in corpore sano, at Eton he played in football and the wall game and won prizes for long-distance running. He ran for Cambridge in the Mile, at White City, in 1950.

Through his own connexion with Peterhouse did not come until 1953, his family tie came earlier, in 1946. In that year (the then Revd) B.H.G. Wormald (1912-2005), historian, Fellow of Peterhouse 1938-79, Emeritus 1979-2005, Chaplain & Catechist 1940-48, Dean 1941-44, married Rosemary Lloyd, Tony’s sister. Rosemary died in 2003.

Lloyd was committed to the Church of England, for which he was an early backer of women bishops. He was a keen supporter of Temple Church and its music. Music was an enduring enthusiasm. He was himself a pianist. He was also a carpenter to a very high standard.

Above all, he was recognised as an outstanding jurist with a strong sense of duty. His heraldic arms contain three hedgehogs and have a hedgehog for crest. The hedgehog, unless it is used as a pun for canting arms, is a symbol of cunning, resilience, perseverance. Lloyd chose as his heraldic motto on elevation to the peerage and entrance as such to the Lords the words ‘Nisi Dominus’, the start of Psalm 127 (B.C.P.): ‘Except the Lord build the house: their labour is but lost that build it’.

© P. Pattenden.