Shawcross, Hartley William Shawcross (1902-2003)

British jurist. After service in World War II, he was attorney general 1945-51 and president of the Board of Trade in 1951 in the Labour government. He established an international legal reputation for himself as chief British prosecutor at the Nürnberg trials 1945-46, led the investigations of the Lynskey Tribunal in 1948, and was prosecutor in the Klaus Fuchs atom spy case in 1950. Finding the narrow opposition tactics of the Labour Party irksome, he resigned his parliamentary seat in 1958.

He was born in Giessen, Germany, and was educated at Dulwich College, London. He was called to the Bar at Gray's Inn in 1925 and was senior lecturer in law at Liverpool 1927-34. He was created a life peer in 1959 and published Life Sentence in 1995.