Arthur Thring

Sir Arthur Theodore Thring, KCB, DL (7 February 1860 – 17 April 1932) was an English lawyer, parliamentary draftsman and parliamentary clerk.

Career Born on 7 February 1860, Arthur Theodore Thring was the third son of Theodore Thring, a "country gentleman", the deputy chairman of the Somerset Quarter Sessions and a Commissioner of Bankruptcy, and his wife Julia Jane, née Mills. His uncles included the First Parliamentary Counsel Lord Thring, the schoolmaster Rev. Edward Thring and the hymn-writer Rev. Godfrey Thring. Arthur attended Winchester College from 1872 and bowled for the school cricket team when it beat Eton College in 1878. The following year, he matriculated at New College, Oxford, as a scholar. He secured a second-class degree in classics in 1883.

Thring was called to the bar in 1887 and practised at parliamentary committees and government inquiries. He was appointed Second Parliamentary Counsel in 1902 and the following year became First Parliamentary Counsel, in which office he was responsible for drafting legislation relating to the People's Budget (1909), the National Insurance Act 1911, the Parliament Act 1911, the Representation of the People Act 1918 and many wartime bills. The Times was more sympathetic, recalling that "If as a draftsman Thring will not be placed in the same rank as his famous uncle, Lord Thring, Ilbert, or Chalmers, his reputation, in times more difficult than theirs, stood the test of legal interpretation". and promoted to Knight Commander (KCB) six years later.