Christmas Humphreys

Humphreys was born in Ealing, Middlesex, the son of Travers Humphreys, himself a noted barrister and judge.[2] His given name "Christmas" is unusual, but, along with "Travers", had a long history in the Humphreys family.[1] Among friends and family he was generally known as 'Toby'.[1] The death of his elder brother shocked Humphreys into reflection about his beliefs and at age 17 he found himself drawn to Buddhism.[1] He attended Malvern College, where he first became a theosophist and later a convert to Buddhism, and Trinity Hall, Cambridge; he was called to the bar by the Inner Temple in 1924.

The same year, Humphreys founded the London Buddhist Lodge, which later changed its name to the Buddhist Society.[1] The impetus for founding the Lodge came from theosophists with whom Humphreys socialised. Both at his home and at the lodge, he played host for eminent spiritual authors such as Nicholas Roerich and Dr Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan, and for prominent Theosophists like Alice Bailey and far Eastern Buddhist authorities like D.T. Suzuki. Other regular visitors in the 1930s were the Russian singer Vladimir Rosing and the young philosopher Alan Watts,[3] and in 1931 Humphreys met the spiritual teacher Meher Baba.[4] The Buddhist Society of London is one of the oldest Buddhist organisations outside Asia.

In 1945, Humphreys drafted the Twelve Principles of Buddhism for which he obtained the approval of all the Buddhist sects in Japan (including the Shin Sect which was not associated with Olcott's common platform) of the Supreme Patriarch of Thailand and leading Buddhists of Sri Lanka, Myanmar, China and Tibet.

When he had first qualified, Humphreys tended to take criminal defence work which allowed his skills in cross-examination to be used. In 1934, he was appointed as Junior Treasury Counsel at the Central Criminal Court (more commonly known as "the Old Bailey"). This job, known unofficially as the "Treasury devil", involved leading many prosecutions.

Humphreys became Recorder of Deal in 1942, a part-time judicial post. In the aftermath of World War II, Humphreys was an assistant prosecutor in the War Crimes trials held in Tokyo.[5] In 1950 he became Senior Treasury Counsel. It was at this time that he led for the Crown in some of the causes célèbre of the era, including the cases of Craig & Bentley[6] and Ruth Ellis. It was Humphreys who secured the conviction of Timothy Evans for a murder later found to have been carried out by John Christie. All three cases played a part in the later abolition of capital punishment in the United Kingdom.

Also in 1950 at the trial of the nuclear spy Klaus Fuchs, Humphreys was the prosecuting counsel for the Attorney General.[7] In 1955, he was made a Bencher of his Inn and the next year became Recorder of Guildford.

In 1962 Humphreys became a Commissioner at the Old Bailey. He became an Additional Judge there in 1968 and served on the bench until his retirement in 1976. Increasingly he became willing to court controversy by his judicial pronouncements. In 1975, he passed a six-month suspended jail sentence on an 18-year-old man convicted of raping two women at knife-point. The leniency of the sentence created a public outcry. His sentence of a man to eighteen months in jail for a fraud shortly afterwards added to the controversy.[8]

The Lord Chancellor defended Humphreys in the face of a House of Commons motion to dismiss him, and he also received support from the National Association of Probation Officers. However, he had pressure put on him to resign, which he did some six months after the controversy.[8]

Humphreys was a prolific author of books on the Buddhist tradition. He was also president of the Shakespeare Fellowship, a position to which he was elected in 1955. The Fellowship advanced the theory that the plays generally attributed to Shakespeare were in fact the work of Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford. Under Humphreys the fellowship changed its name to the Shakespeare Authorship Society.

In 1962 Humphreys was appointed Vice-President of the Tibet Society, and made Joint Vice-Chairman of the Royal India, Pakistan and Ceylon Society.[9]

He published his autobiography Both Sides of the Circle in 1978. He also wrote poetry, especially verses inspired by his Buddhist beliefs, one of which posed the question: When I die, who dies?

He died at his London home, 58 Marlborough Place, St John's Wood.[2]

• Buddhism and Theosophy
• Buddhism in the United Kingdom

• Biography of Christmas Humphreys
• "Christmas Humphreys: A Buddhist Judge in Twentieth Century London" Damien P. Horigan Korean Journal of Comparative Law 24, 1–16