Patrick Hastings

Who was Patrick Hastings?

Sir Patrick Gardiner Hastings KC was a British barrister and politician noted for his long and highly successful career as a barrister and his short stint as Attorney General. He was educated at Charterhouse School until 1896, when his family moved to continental Europe. There he learnt to shoot and ride horses, allowing him to join the Suffolk Imperial Yeomanry after the outbreak of the Second Boer War. After demobilisation he worked briefly as an apprentice to an engineer in Wales before moving to London to become a barrister. Hastings joined the Middle Temple as a student on 4 November 1901, and after two years of saving money for the call to the Bar he finally qualified as a barrister on 15 June 1904.

Hastings first rose to prominence as a result of the Case of the Hooded Man in 1912, and became noted for his skill at cross-examinations. After his success in Gruban v Booth in 1917, his practice steadily grew, and in 1919 he became a King's Counsel. Following various successes as a KC in cases such as Sievier v Wootton and Russell v Russell, his practice was put on hold in 1922 when he was returned as the Labour Member of Parliament for Wallsend. Hastings was appointed Attorney General for England and Wales in 1924, by the first Labour government, and knighted. His authorisation of the prosecution of J. R. Campbell in what became known as the Campbell Case, however, led to the fall of the government after less than a year in power.