John Hamilton, 1st Viscount Sumner

John Andrew Hamilton, 1st Viscount Sumner, (3 February 1859 – 24 May 1934) was a British lawyer and judge. He was appointed a judge of the High Court of Justice (King's Bench Division) in 1909, a Lord Justice of Appeal in 1912 and a Lord of Appeal in Ordinary (Law Lord) in 1913. Created a life peer as Baron Sumner in 1913, he was further honoured when he was granted a hereditary peerage as Viscount Sumner in 1927.

Background and education Hamilton was born in Chorlton-upon-Medlock, Lancashire, and his wife, Frances, daughter of Joseph Sumner.

Hamilton was educated at Manchester Grammar School and Balliol College, Oxford. In 1883, he was called to the bar, Inner Temple. He received an Honorary Doctorate of Laws by the University of Edinburgh in 1913 and by the University of Manchester in 1919.

Judicial career Hamilton joined in the Northern Circuit and became a King's Counsel in 1901. He was further honoured, when on 31 January 1927, he created a hereditary peerage as Viscount Sumner, of Ibstone, in the County of Buckingham. Hamilton retired as judge in 1930. He subsequently helped draft the Treaty of Versailles as part of the reparations commission, for which he was appointed a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath (GCB) in the 1920 Birthday Honours.

Arms

Famous judgements Bowman v The Secular Society (1917) Elder Dempster & Co v Paterson Zochonis & Co (1924)