George Emslie, Baron Emslie

Who was George Emslie, Baron Emslie?

George Carlyle Emslie, Baron Emslie. PC, MBE, was a Scottish judge.

Educated at the High School of Glasgow and the University of Glasgow, he was commissioned in the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders and served in World War II in North Africa, Italy, Greece and Austria, rising to the rank of Brigade Major from 1944 to 1946. He was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire in 1946.

He became an advocate in 1948 and served as an Advocate Depute from 1955. He became a Queen's Counsel in 1957. He was Sheriff of Perth and Angus from 1963 to 1966 and Dean of the Faculty of Advocates from 1965 to 1970. He was appointed a Senator of the College of Justice in 1970 and was Lord President of the Court of Session and Lord Justice General from 1972 to 1989. He was appointed a Privy Counsellor in 1972 and Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1987.

He was made a life peer as Baron Emslie, of Potterton in the District of Gordon on 11 February 1980 but didn't take his seat in the House of Lords until 1990.