Montague Shearman

Sir Montague Shearman, (7 April 1857 – 6 January 1930) was an English judge and athlete. He was a co-founder of the Amateur Athletics Association in 1880.

Early life Shearman was the second son of Montagu Shearman, a solicitor, from Wimbledon, Surrey and his wife Mary, née Catty. Montague also became the 440 yards national champion at the 1880 AAA Championships. Montague's brother John Shearman won the quarter-mile championship at the 1878 AAC Championships, defeating Montague into second place.

Montague was also an accomplished rugby player, obtaining his "blue" as a forward and three-quarter in the university team from 1878 – 1880.

Career Legal Shearman entered the Inner Temple as a student in 1877, and was called to the bar in 1881. He practised on the Midland Circuit for twenty-two years before "taking silk" to become a king's counsel in 1903. He was a specialist in common law and commercial cases. Along with Lord Hardinge and Sir Mackenzie Chalmers he conducted an official inquiry into the origin and causes of the "Sinn Fein Rebellion" of 1916.

Notable cases at which Shearman presided were the trial of Harold Greenwood at Carmarthen in 1920; of Edith Thompson and Frederick Bywaters; of the murderers of General Henry Wilson at the Central Criminal Court in 1922;

His role in the Thompson-Bywaters trial has been subject to controversy because of the prejudice he showed towards Edith Thompson, who had been charged as a co-conspirator in the murder of her husband by her lover, Freddy Bywaters. In his memoirs journalist and politician, Beverley Baxter, referred to it as only being "in a nightmare that judicial killing was ever countenanced by a supposedly civilised people". He also described the trial as having the atmosphere of "the days of the Roman Empire when the Christians were thrown to the lions". Shearman was unequivocal about his views of the young woman when he told the jurors during his summing up (he would only call them all gentlemen despite there being two women on the jury) what he thought about Thompson's adultery: "I am certain that you, like any other right-minded person, will be filled with disgust at such a notion."

Personal life In 1884 he married Mary Louise Long of New York, and they had two sons.

The Burlington Magazine noted that the collection focusses on "themes with a clear relationship to comfortable middle-class life .. the satirical element never becoming obtrusive, and in the Lautrec having a distinctly moralising tendency. One wonders whether there was a reason in Shearman's taste for preferring a Renoir landscape to a figure subject - did he dislike Renoir's fleshy and voluptuous types ? - and one's suspicions are strengthened on noticing that the little group of Etty nude-studies are all back-views !"

Death Shearman died at his London residence, Leigh House, 6 Eaton Gate, in January 1930, aged 72.

In popular culture In the 1981 Granada Television series Lady Killers, Shearman was played by Hugh Morton in an episode entitled "The Darlingest Boy".

Books

. (This book ran to five editions, and according to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography "stood the test of time for its comprehensiveness and for the quality of its writing") "New edition" (1888) Third edition (1893) Fourth edition (1894) (material from Athletics and Football: "issued separately, largely rewritten")