The Legal Adviser to the Home Office is a senior government lawyer and the chief legal adviser to the Home Office. The office was formally established in 1933, but older offices with similar functions date back to the early nineteenth century.
History After 1824, the Home Office employed parliamentary draftsmen, but not in a formal position, to prepare and improve criminal law. William Gregson was employed continuously between 1826 and 1833 in this capacity and received annual payments. His employment ended in 1833 and two years later the Treasury agreed to find funds for a permanent Parliamentary Counsel, whose office had a salary fixed at £1,200; this was incorporated into the Home Office in 1837. However the office was abolished in 1869 and its incumbent, Henry Thring, was appointed First Parliamentary Counsel to the Treasury.J. C. Sainty, Office-Holders in Modern Britain: Volume 5, Home Office Officials 1782–1870 (University of London, 1975), pp. 11–44.Gregson's eventual replacement, but on a permanent and official footing, was John Elliot Drinkwater Bethune in 1835; he was succeeded in 1848 by Walter Coulson, and he in 1861 by Henry Thring. The counsel had a clerk after 1836, and there was also a Solicitor to the Home Office (William Vizard), appointed briefly between February and September 1841 and not replaced, the functions going to the Treasury Solicitor. (See, J. C. Sainty, Office-Holders in Modern Britain: Volume 5, Home Office, 1782–1870, p. 41; J. C. Sainty, Office-Holders in Modern Britain: Volume 1, Treasury Officials, 1660–1870, pp. 99–100, fn. 4.)
The Home Secretary, Gathorne Gathorne-Hardy, felt that the office needed its own permanent legal adviser and Godfrey Lushington was appointed Counsel to the Home Office.Jill Pellew, The Home Office, 1848–1914, from Clerks to Bureaucrats (Farleigh Dickinson University Press, 1982), p. 19."Lushington, Sir Godfrey", Who Was Who (online edition, Oxford University Press, December 2007). Retrieved 18 January 2019.Note that Sainty calls the office 'Legal Adviser' (Modern Office-Holders, vol. v, p. 44), although in his Who's Who entry Lushington himself calls it 'Counsel'. In 1876, he was promoted to Legal Assistant Under-Secretary.Roy MacLeod, Government and Expertise: Specialists, Administrators and Professionals, 1860–1919 (Cambridge University Press, 1988), p. 67. In that office, he was succeeded by Sir Edward Leigh-Pemberton, who retired in 1894,"Leigh-Pemberton, Sir Edward", Who Was Who (online edition, Oxford University Press, December 2007). Retrieved 18 January 2019. who was in turn succeeded by Sir Henry Cunynghame.Pellew, p. 59. In 1913, Ernley Blackwell was appointed as Cunynghame's replacement, and served until 1933. When Blackwell retired, the Home Office's senior civil servants took the opportunity to reorganise the department, and replaced his office with that of the Legal Adviser (with the rank of Under-Secretary),Norman George Price, The relationship of the Home Office and the Ministry of Labour with the Treasury Establishment Division, 1919–1946: An Evolution of Contrasting Needs (Unpublished PhD thesis, London School of Economics, 1991), pp. 170, 374, 376–7. the first of whom was Sir Oscar Dowson. This has been considered the foundation of the current office.Gavin Drewry, "Lawyers in the UK Civil Service", Public Administration, vol. 59 (1981), p. 19.
Office-holders Legal advisers have included: 1869–1876: Godfrey Lushington (as Counsel).Joseph Foster, Men at the Bar, p. 288. 1876–1885: Godfrey Lushington (as Legal Assistant Under-Secretary). 1885–1894: Edward Leigh Pemberton (as Legal Assistant Under-Secretary; later KCB) 1894–1913: Sir Henry Hardinge Samuel Cunynghame (as Legal Assistant Under-Secretary) 1913–1933: Sir Ernley Blackwell (as Legal Assistant Under-Secretary) 1933–1946: Sir Oscar Follett Dowson 1947–1956: Sir Leslie Brass 1956–1977: Sir John Kenneth Trevor Jones 1977–1983: John Douglas Semken 1983–1988: James Nursaw 1988–1992: Anthony Hilgrove Hammond 1992–1995: Michael Lawrence Saunders 1995–1997: David Edgar Joseph Nissen 1997–2000: Juliet Wheldon 2000–2012: David Seymour 2012–2014: Jonathan Jones (also Director General, Legal).Civil Service Yearbook: 50th Edition, 2013–14 (Dandy Publishers, 2014), p. 112."Jonathan Jones" (HM Government). Retrieved 19 January 2019. 2014–present: Peter James Reginald Fish (also Director General, Legal)."Peter Fish" (HM Government). Retrieved 19 January 2019.
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