PAPERS OF OR RELATING TO RAYMOND EVERSHED, BARON EVERSHED OF STAPENHILL (1899-1966)

These records reflect the legal, official and private life of Lord Evershed. Because of the mixed nature of several of the items, they have been listed in a single chronological sequence rather than being placed in thematic categories. The style 'Lord Evershed' is used throughout, regardless of the date of the documents.

Deposited by Dr T A Evershed

Francis Raymond Evershed was born in Burton in 1899. Having attended Clifton College and Balliol College Oxford, he was called to the Bar at Lincoln's Inn in 1923 and became a King's Counsel ten years later. In 1944 he was knighted and became a judge in the Chancery Division of the High Court of Justice. In 1947 he was appointed a Lord Justice of Appeal and in 1949 he became Master of the Rolls. In 1950 he was appointed as a United Kingdom member of the Permanent Court of Arbitratation at the Hague, and in 1956 was created 1st Baron Evershed of Stapenhill. In 1962 he stepped down as Master of the Rolls to become a Lord of Appeal in Ordinary, a position he held until his retirement in 1965. He died in 1966 and his title became extinct.

As well as his main legal offices, he also chaired the commission on wages and conditions of labour in the cotton spinning industry, 1945-1946, and the committees of enqiry into dock wages, 1945, and into prices and production of textile machinery, 1946.