BANKES, Sir JOHN ELDON (1854 - 1946), judge

Born at Northop, Flint, 17 April 1854, son of John Scott Bankes of Soughton Hall, a great-grandson of John Scott (Lord Chancellor Eldon); he was also a lineal descendant of John Wynne, bishop of St. Asaph, whose daughter Margaret married Henry Bankes, and whose Soughton estate thus became the seat of the Bankes family. J. E. Bankes went to Eton and Christ Church (he rowed for Oxford), was called to the Bar in 1878, and took silk in 1901. In 1910 he became a judge of the High Court, and in 1915 a Lord Justice of Appeal and a Privy Councillor; he retired in 1927.

Both before and after his retirement he devoted himself to public work; in Flintshire he was for 33 years chairman of Quarter Sessions and an active member of the County Council, of which he was chairman in 1933; outside it, he was placed on numerous commissions or committees of inquiry - he was, for instance, chairman of the Departmental Committee on Education in Rural Wales, 1928. Politically, he was a Conservative, and had unsuccessfully contested Flint Boroughs in 1906. In religious matters, he was a prominent Anglican, interested especially in the problem of religious instruction in the schools. With Lord Sankey he drafted the new constitution of the Church in Wales. He was honorary LL.D. (1921) of the University of Wales. He died 31 December 1946. He had married in 1882 Edith Ethelston (died 1931), and they had two sons and two daughters.

Author

• Emeritus Professor Robert Thomas Jenkins, (1881 - 1969)

Sources

• Who's who?
• and obituary notices in the press

Further Reading

• Wikipedia Article: John Eldon Bankes

Additional Links

• Wikidata: Q17308772

Published date: 2001

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