REVIEWS
| Date | 01 July 1991 |
| Published date | 01 July 1991 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2230.1991.tb00913.x |
REVIEWS
Eclmund
Hewurd,
Lord
Denning:
A
Biography,
London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson,
1990,
x
+
243
pp, hb
f15.00.
This is a peculiar book. In part
it
consists of that increasingly familiar genre of
‘Denning’s contribution
to
the development of the law.’ Other parts consist of snippets
of Denning’s personal life, culled from a combination of Denning’s autobiography
and anecdotes and correspondence from admirers, friends and relatives. There is
a critical stab at Denning’s strengths and shortcomings as a writer. There are also
many lists
-
of Denning’s annual income from his practice at the Bar, of his honours,
or lack of them, of his travels, of his fan clubs throughout the world, of his cases,
of his appearances
in
the (Parliamentary) House
of
Lords before and after his retire-
ment, of the Bills he supported and opposed and
so
on.
This is a biography.
So
we are supposed to ask: what of the man? Denning is
patriotic, Christian (from birth rather than conversion), conservative and therefore
apolitical, in favour of the small man against the abuses committed
by
the powerful.
Throughout, Denning is The True Englishman, and only self-conscious about this
to
the extent that he knows how
to
play the role. There is a revealing aside, late
on
in
the book, albeit scripted in the hagiographical tone which largely dominates
throughout, where an actor laments the
loss
which Denning’s call
to
the law did
to
the acting profession. Denning knows how
to
play it, how to make the headlines
-
even today, years after his retirement.
Denning stood out, it would seem, for two reasons: first, because
of
the increasingly
stylised directness of his prose by comparison with that of most of his contemporaries,
and, progressively,
his
juniors on the Bench; secondly, through his very longevity
in
judicial office. To this must be added his gift for self-promotion, and the manner
of its orchestration: even now, he remains good copy
-
plain-speaking, ordinary
Tom. Trades unionists, Afro-Caribbean and Asian activists, women’s groups
-
we are told
-
could always understand Denning, even if, in his latter years, they
could not always forgive him. And generations of law students and law lecturers,
many now
well
into practice or even on the Bench, loved
him
not only for this
commitment
to
justice but also, and perhaps more, for his directness and almost
arch simplicity of presentation and for his desire
to
entertain in his judgments.
That Denning’s wider reputation has been somewhat eclipsed
in
the
last
ten years
is
not here denied, and attests
to
the fact that Denning was not always just a maverick
but more significantly represented just one conception of England and of English
values even
in
the early part of his career: Ealing comedies, Alistair Sim, Margaret
Rutherford,
mises-en-scrhes
in
which evil was either absent or represented by the
likes of Herbert Lom. Several times this book mentions that he never drunk or
smoked; today this would mean something different from what
it
meant in the
Twenties. Inhabiting a different England, Evelyn Waugh
ef
ul
would presumably
have considered Denning quite simply a bore.
The book ends inconclusively on the question of Denning’s importance. And this
is odd. Clearly Denning has had more presence, more salience, than any other judge
in
the
UK
in this century. He had
-
and retains
-
name-recognition and is, in
this and some other respects, best compared with William
0.
Douglas
in
the
US
Supreme
Court
(if
Denning was a self-styled emblem of this sceptred isle,
so
Douglas
was a frontiersman of his continent). The interesting thing about Denning’s career,
606
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