John Lort-Williams

{{Short description|British politician and judge}}

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{{Use British English|date=May 2017}}

File:Vote for Lort-Williams the Unionist & tariff reform candidate (5449688) (cropped).jpg

Sir John Rolleston Lort-Williams{{cite news|title=KNIGHTHOOD FOR A CHELTONIAN|work=Cheltenham Chronicle|date=27 June 1936|accessdate=1 February 2016|url=http://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000518/19360627/107/0007|via=British Newspaper Archive|url-access=subscription }} (14 September 1881 – 9 June 1966) was a Judge and MP for Rotherhithe between the general elections of 1918 and 1923.{{cite news|title=Society and Personal|work=Aberdeen Journal|date=13 December 1927|accessdate=1 February 2016|url=http://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000577/19271213/036/0006|via=British Newspaper Archive|url-access=subscription }}{{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20121219110721/http://www.leighrayment.com/commons/Rcommons2.htm THE HOUSE OF COMMONS CONSTITUENCIES BEGINNING WITH "R"]}}, leighrayment.com; accessed 9 April 2016.

Lort-Williams was born in Walsall, the only son of Charles William Williams, a local solicitor. He was educated at Merchant Taylors School and the University of London. In 1902 he adopted the surname Lort-Williams.{{cite web|url=http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/rd/ea2b92b7-b5f6-4e9c-98ad-9a3de47fc9b6|title=Declaration of John Rolleston Lort-Williams of Westbourne Park Villas, London, Concerning the change of his name from John Rolleston Williams to Lort-Williams|publisher=The National Archives}} Two years later he was called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn. He stood for election for the Conservative Party at the Pembrokeshire during the 1906 United Kingdom general election and the 1908 Pembrokeshire by-election, but was unsuccessful in both attempts, first to John Wynford Philipps and then to Walter Roch.{{cite news|title=Pembroke Poll|work=Gloucestershire Echo|date=17 July 1908|accessdate=4 February 2016|url=http://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000320/19080717/103/0004|via=British Newspaper Archive|url-access=subscription }}

From 1907 to 1910 he represented Tower Hamlets, Limehouse on the London County Council as a Municipal Reform Party councillor.{{cite news|newspaper=The Times|title=Obituary: Sir John Lort-Williams|date=13 June 1966|page=12}}{{cite book|title=Achievement. A Short History of the London County Council|year=1965|publisher=Longmans|page=271|author=W Eric Jackson}} In 1918 he was elected to parliament at Rotherhithe.

After not being reelected in 1923, Lort-Williams resumed his legal career and became Recorder of Walsall in 1924. In 1927 he was appointed as a Puisne Judge of the High Court of Judicature at Calcutta, in succession to William Ewart Greaves.{{cite news|title=Mr. Lort-Williams|work=Gloucestershire Chronicle|date=16 December 1927|accessdate=1 February 2016|url=http://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000393/19271216/036/0002|via=British Newspaper Archive|url-access=subscription }} In 1936, while being Judge of the High Court of Judicature at Fort William in Bengal, Lort-Williams was styled as Knight Bachelor. He held the post until his retirement in 1941.

He died at his Worcestershire home in 1966, aged 84.