Martin Thomas, Baron Thomas of Gresford

Martin Thomas, Baron Thomas of Gresford OBE QC (born March 13, 1937 in Wrexham ) is a British lawyer and politician of the Liberal Party and now the Liberal Democrats , who has been a member of the House of Lords since 1996 .

Life

Lawyer and unsuccessful lower house candidates

After attending the Grove Park Grammar School in Wrexham, Thomas studied law and classical antiquity at the Peterhouse of the University of Cambridge and completed these studies with a Bachelor of Laws (LL.B.) and a Master of Arts (MA Classics) from. After completing his studies, he worked as a solicitor between 1961 and 1966 and subsequently lectured for a time .

In the mid-1960s, Thomas began his political involvement in the Liberal Party and ran for a seat in the House of Commons in the general election on October 15, 1964 , March 31, 1976 and June 18, 1970 in the West Flintshire constituency .

Having in the meantime as 1967 Barrister at the Bar Association of Gray's Inn was admitted, he was then a lawyer working. After he was vice-chairman of the Liberal Party of Wales between 1967 and 1969 , he was chairman of the Welsh Liberal Party from 1969 to 1974.

In addition, he continued his political career within the Liberal Party and applied for this in the general election on February 28, 1974 , October 15, 1974 , May 3, 1979 , June 9, 1983 and the last time June 11, 1987 again unsuccessfully for a seat in the House of Commons, where he ran in these elections in each case in the constituency of Wrexham . Thomas, who has been President of the Wrexham Liberal Association since 1975 , was President of the Liberal Party in Wales from 1977 to 1979.

Judge and House of Lords

In addition to his political engagement, Thomas was appointed Deputy Circuit Judge in 1974 and was then a recorder at the Crown Court between 1976 and 1995 . Because of his legal merits, he was appointed Crown Attorney in 1979 . He was also a member of the Criminal Injury Compensation Board between 1985 and 1993 .

Most recently, Thomas, who was first Vice-President between 1991 and 1993 and then President of the Liberal Democrats in Wales in 1993, was Deputy Judge at the High Court of Justice between 1995 and 1996 during his judicial career .

In 1996 he was raised to the nobility as a Life Peer with the title Baron Thomas of Gresford , of Gresford in the County Borough of Wrexham and has been a member of the House of Lords ever since .

During his long-standing membership in the House of Lords, he was initially from 1996 to 2004 spokesman for the Group of the Liberal Democrats for Wales and Home Affairs ( Home Office ). He was then appointed to his party's shadow cabinet in 2004 , where he was first shadow attorney general , then shadow lord chancellor between 2006 and 2007 and then again shadow attorney general and spokesman for the Liberal Democrats for justice from 2007 to 2010. He is also chairman of the Lloyd George Society .

Since 2005 he is married to Joan Walmsley, Baroness Walmsley's second marriage . This makes him and his wife one of the few couples in British history who are members of the House of Lords by virtue of their own nobility.

Web links

• Entry on Parliament's homepage (accessed on July 3, 2012)
• Entry in They Work For You (accessed July 3, 2012)