Robert Alexander, Baron Alexander of Weedon

Robert Scott Alexander, Baron Alexander of Weedon (born September 5, 1936 in Newcastle-under-Lyme , † November 6, 2005 ) was a British barrister , banker and life peer .

life and career

Early years

Alexander's father owned a small petrol station, and his mother did the bookkeeping there. Both parents left school early. After the family moved to Hove , Alexander attended Brighton College and then went to Cambridge to King's College , where he enrolled in English literature. After two years, however, he broke off this course and instead took law as a subject, following a suggestion made by his father. At first he aspired to become a solicitor , but his tutor Kenneth Polack convinced him to pursue a career as a barrister.

Alexander received a scholarship from the Middle Temple , he also worked for the daily newspaper The Times as a proofreader for court reports in order to be able to finance his studies. He was admitted to the bar in 1961.

Career as a barrister

Alexander initially worked in the judicial district of the Western Circuit , where he became aware of Eustace Roskill , who brought him back to London in 1966 . There he worked in the Brick Court Chambers , which developed into one of the most respected bar associations in the United Kingdom in the 1970s and 1980s. Alexander's colleagues included Nicholas Phillips , Nicholas Lyell, and Jonathan Sumption . In 1973 he was appointed Queen's Counsel , and in 1979 he became a Bencher , a member of the board of directors of the Middle Temple.

Alexander was always very well prepared in court. In addition, his size of almost two meters contributed to make him an imposing figure in court. From the press he received due to the stringency of its arguments nicknamed The Welded Rail to German The welded rail . His contemporary Lord Denning called him the best barrister of his generation.

From 1985 to 1986 he was Chairman of the Bar Council , the barristers' union in Great Britain. There he made particular efforts to public relations. He hired a PR company for the Bar Council for the first time and set up a press office. From 1987 to 1989 he headed the Panel on Takeovers and Mergers , a regulatory agency that oversees the fair treatment of all parties involved in company takeovers and mergers. His work there is generally seen as very successful; it robbed the institution of its reputation for ineffectiveness and brought new calm to the British takeover market.

Major court cases

In his function as a barrister, Alexander appeared in numerous court cases that met with wide media coverage.

• In 1978 he represented Kerry Packer in his lawsuit against the International Cricket Council and the Test and County Cricket Board (TCCB). The world association wanted to ban cricketers who competed in Packer's newly founded World Series Cricket in Australia from all test matches . The court saw this as an inadmissible restriction on player changes.
• In 1984 he represented the Margaret Thatcher government against public service unions . These wanted to tackle the ban on trade unions in the GCHQ news center in Cheltenham , but failed, among other things, because of Alexander's defense.
• In 1985 he represented cricketer Ian Botham against the TCCB. Botham complained about the two-month ban he received after admitting in a newspaper that he smoked crack . The lock was maintained.
• In 1987 he represented Jeffrey Archer in his defamation suit against the tabloid Daily Star , which accused him of a relationship with a prostitute. Alexander received £ 500,000 in compensation for Archer. However, it later emerged that Archer had lied throughout the process.
• Also in 1987, he represented the British government when it tried to prevent the British media from publishing details of the autobiography of former MI5 officer Peter Wright . However, since over a million copies of the book had already been sold worldwide at the time, the judge argued that any damage to national security could no longer be averted.

Other offices

In 1988 Alexander was named a Life Peer . He has since officially carried the title of Baron Alexander of Weedon, of Newcastle-under-Lyme in the County of Stafford and took a seat in the House of Lords for the Conservative Party . There he emerged in particular through his vehement opposition to the Iraq war , which he did not see as justified. In 1989 he succeeded Tom Boardman, Baron Boardman, chairman of the National Westminster Bank . He held this post until 1999. Although he ran the bank through some financial difficulties, his time there is generally viewed as less than successful. He was particularly criticized for his arrogant management style.

From 1987 to the summer of 1993 he served as a trustee for the National Gallery ; He was also from 1990 to the summer of 2005 one of four trustees of the weekly magazine The Economist and from 2000 to 2001 President of the Marylebone Cricket Club , then until 2004 Chairman.

In 1999 he became Chancellor of the University of Exeter and the following year he also took over the chairmanship of the Royal Shakespeare Company .

Alexander was married three times and had four children.

Web links

• Robert Alexander im Hansard (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c} Obituary on theguardian.com, accessed on February 27, 2015
2. ↑ ^{a b} Nachriuf on independent.co.uk (Engl.) Accessed on February 27, 2015
3. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h i j} Obituary on oldbrightonians.com, accessed on February 27, 2015
4. ↑ ^{a b} Robert Scott Alexander, Baron Alexander of Weedon on thepeerage.com , accessed on 16 September 2016th
5. ↑ Obituary on efinancialnews.com, accessed on February 27, 2015
6. ↑ ^{a b c} Obituary on telegraph.co.uk, accessed on February 27, 2015
7. ^ Obituary on economist.com, accessed on February 27, 2015
8. ↑ Report on exeter.ac.uk accessed on February 27, 2015