Christmas Humphreys

Who was Christmas Humphreys?

Travers Christmas Humphreys, QC was a British barrister who prosecuted several controversial cases in the 1940s and 1950s, and later became a judge at the Old Bailey. He also wrote a number of works on Mahayana Buddhism. In his day he was the best-known British convert to Buddhism. In 1924 he founded what became the London Buddhist Society, which was to have a seminal influence on the growth of the Buddhist tradition in Britain. His former home in St John's Wood, London, is now a Buddhist temple. He was also an enthusiastic proponent of the Oxfordian theory of Shakespeare authorship.