Terry Etherton
Former master of the rolls dies at 73
Lord Etherton GBE, a distinguished appeal judge and master of the rolls from 2016 until his retirement at the beginning of 2021, died last night. He was 73.
Announcing his death, the lady chief justice of England and Wales said:
Lord Etherton was an inspiring judge and leader, with a passionate commitment to access to justice, and a true friend to so many of us.
Terry Etherton, as he was always called, leaves a husband, Andrew Stone. The couple had been together for some 47 years and were married at West London Synagogue in 2014, when civil partners were first allowed to marry.
After Etherton appeared unwell at his valedictory ceremony in December 2020, he disclosed that he was receiving treatment for a hereditary blood disorder. But he appeared to recover and he played an active part in the House of Lords, to which he was appointed on retirement. Last year, he was made Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire for services to LGBT veterans.
The best way of remembering Etherton is through his own words. During his valedictory address, he disclosed that his attempts to seek a judicial appointment in the 1990s had been rebuffed because of his sexual orientation:
When, after I took silk, the time arrived for seeing what I could do to make my own contribution towards the welfare of the public, I found that the possibility of time on the bench was barred to me.
It was barred to me not because of any particular regulation or legislation. It was barred to me because I was a gay man; and Lord Hailsham, who became lord chancellor in 1970, had put into effect a policy of not appointing gay men because he felt that it would lead to their blackmail. This was some two years after the Sexual Offences Act 1967 was passed and it was a perfectly outrageous secret policy to have implemented. Although I say “secret policy”, it wasn’t really — because everybody knew that it was the policy of Lord Hailsham.
Of course, the only reason that people like Lord Hailsham felt there was going to be a backlash against the judiciary was because Lord Hailsham felt that appointing an openly gay man would result in potential blackmail. But anyone with the slightest good sense, I would suggest, would immediately understand that if an openly gay man was, or is, open to blackmail, it’s because of the very prejudices of people like Lord Hailsham who espouse those particular concerns and values.
What we didn’t know was that, by the time I became interested in becoming a High Court judge, the rules had in fact changed and that policy of Lord Hailsham no longer applied.
The turning point came not only with that particular change in policy but when, in 1997, it became possible for the first time to participate in what I would describe as an informal approach to the ministry about a judicial appointment. To my complete astonishment, and I’m sure that of everybody else, my informal application was accepted. I had an interview with someone from the ministry. And I was, in due course, appointed to become a High Court judge…
The vow that I took when I became a High Court judge was that, as the first openly gay High Court judge, I would never deviate at all from being myself and from living a totally open and honest life as a gay man in a court setting. That is what I hope I’ve achieved.
By and large, that has been the message that has been received — and received well — by the senior judiciary.
There have been occasional hiccups. At one rather grand dinner, attended by members of the appellate committee — now the Supreme Court — and other very distinguished people, the wife of a member of the appellate committee, at one stage during the meal, turned to Andrew, whom she was sitting next to, and said to him, why you here? A perfectly reasonable question, to which he gave the explanation. One she had understood what the explanation was, she simply turned her back on him and didn’t address a further word to him during the whole of the meal. But that was unusual.
And, by the time we got to our wedding day, we had the remarkable situation that there were over 300 invited guests who had accepted the invitation. It was an amazing event and, if anything could more clearly set out what the impact of a greater awareness of diversity is, it would be difficult to improve on that as an example.
At the end of the ceremony, everybody applauded and one lady justice of appeal said: “tell me of one occasion during the whole service when I was not in tears”. So I hope that I have kept to my promise to myself to be, if at all possible, a role model. My experience is that role models have a greater impact than anybody else.
Terence Michael Elkan Barnet Etherton was sometimes asked where his name had come from. He answered that question, up to a point, at the start of his Lionel Cohen lecture, delivered at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 2019. Speaking in confident, fluent Hebrew, he told the story of his grandparents, arriving in the East End of London from the pale of settlement in Russia during the early years of the 20th century only to find more antisemitism in Britain.
“My paternal great-uncle persuaded his parents to change the family name,” he said. “And so Schliama Borrenstein became Seddon Llewellyn Delroy Ryan Etherton.”
His great-grandparents, he added, would have been dumbfounded to see hiin delivering a lecture in Israel as the second most senior judge of England and Wales.
On his appointment in 2019 as a fellow of Birkbeck, University of London, the college’s orator summed up Etherton’s achievements and his aspirations:
Sir Terence’s coat of arms features not only sapphires but also a sword, evoking his earlier life as a swordsman. His motto is written in Hebrew lettering: the single word הנני — “here I am” — Abraham’s response when God tested his faith.
Sir Terence asks that people accept him for who he is — and announces to the world that he is keen to serve.
Update 8 May: the lady chief justice has now published a more detailed tribute.
What a fine man and what an uplifting story!
May his memory be a blessing