Richard Wilberforce, Baron Wilberforce

Who was Richard Wilberforce, Baron Wilberforce?

Richard Orme Wilberforce, Baron Wilberforce, QC, PC, was a Lord of Appeal in Ordinary in the House of Lords from 1964 to 1982.

Richard Wilberforce was a great-great-grandson of the famous abolitionist William Wilberforce, and son of a judge of the Lahore High Court, India. He grew up in India and attended Norwich School, Sandroyd School, Winchester College and New College, Oxford, and was later elected a Fellow of All Souls College. He was called to the Bar in 1932 and became a Queen's Counsel in 1954.

He was first appointed to the bench in 1961 as a Chancery judge. Then in 1964 he was appointed to the House of Lords as a Lord Appeal in Ordinary, made a life peer as Baron Wilberforce, of the City and County of Kingston-upon-Hull. He is the only England and Wales judge in recent times to have been appointed to the House of Lords straight from the High Court Bench, without serving in the Court of Appeal. His decisions were known for being reserved and cautious.

Wilberforce was Chancellor of the University of Hull between 1978 and 1994.