Rufus Isaacs was born at 3 Bury Street, in the parish of St Mary Axe, London, the son of a Jewish fruit importer at Spitalfields.[3] He was educated at University College School[1] and then entered the family business at the age of 15. In 1876–77 he served as a ship's boy and later worked as a jobber on the stock-exchange from 1880 to 1884. In 1887 he married Alice Edith Cohen, who suffered from a chronic physical disability and died of cancer in 1930, after over 40 years of marriage. The Lady Reading Hospital in Peshawar is named after her.
Isaacs was admitted as a student to the Middle Temple in 1885, and was called to the Bar in 1887.[6] He set up his own chambers at 1 Garden Court, Temple, and was very successful; within five years he was able to repay his creditors, and after twenty years at the bar earned the enormous sum of £30,000 per year. He was appointed a Queen's Counsel in 1898, after only ten and half years at the junior bar.
Isaacs mainly practised in the Commercial Court, with occasional appearance in the divorce court or at the Old Bailey. Among his famous cases were the defence of The Star against a charge of libel by Arthur Chamberlain (at the behest of his brother Joseph), the Taff Vale case (where he appeared for the union), the 1903 Bayliss v. Coleridge libel suit, the prosecution of the fraudster Whitaker Wright, the defence of Sir Edward Russell on a charge of criminal libel, and that of Robert Sievier on a charge of blackmail.
As a barrister, Isaacs was a hard worker, rising early to prepare his cases, although he never worked after dinner. His advocacy was calm and forensic, and he was renowned for his style of cross-examination.
In 1910, he was appointed solicitor general in the government of H. H. Asquith and received the customary knighthood. After six months, he was appointed attorney general. On the resignation of Lord Loreburn as Lord Chancellor in 1912, Isaacs had expected to succeed him, but was passed over in favour of Lord Haldane. To appease him, Asquith invited Isaacs to join the Cabinet; he was the first attorney general to sit in the Cabinet.
As law officer, Isaacs handled many high-profile cases. As solicitor general, he appeared for the Admiralty in the George Archer-Shee case. As attorney general, he led the prosecutions of Edward Mylius for criminal libel against King George V (and was appointed KCVO shortly after), of poisoner Frederick Seddon (the only murder trial Isaacs ever took part in), and of suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst. He also represented the Board of Trade at the inquiry into the sinking of the RMS Titanic.
The allegations included the fact that Isaacs's brother, Godfrey Isaacs, was managing director of the Marconi company at the time that the cabinet, in which Isaacs sat, awarded Marconi the contract.[9][10] Isaacs and Samuels sued Le Matin for libel, and as a result, the journal apologised and printed a complete retraction in its 18 February 1913 issue.[8][11][12]
The factual matters were at least partly resolved by a parliamentary select committee investigation, which issued three reports: all found that Isaacs and others had purchased shares in the American Marconi company, but while the fellow-Liberal members of the committee cleared the ministers of all blame, the opposition members reported that Isaacs and others had acted with "grave impropriety".[8] It was not made public during the trial that these shares had been made available through Isaacs's brother at a favourable price.[13]
In October 1913 he was made Lord Chief Justice of England, in succession to the Viscount Alverstone. At the time the Attorney General had the right of first refusal for the appointment, but his involvement in the Marconi scandal complicated matters. Although reluctant to abandon his political career Isaacs felt he had little choice: to refuse would be to suggest that the Marconi scandal had tainted him. Consequently, he accepted the post, and was elevated to the peerage as Baron Reading, of Erleigh in the County of Berkshire, on 9 January 1914.[14] His appointment caused some controversy, and led to Rudyard Kipling attacking him in the poem "Gehazi".
As Lord Chief Justice, Reading presided over the trial of Roger Casement for high treason. His attendance in court was, however, intermittent, as he was frequently called upon by the government to serve as an advisor. In August 1914 Reading was enlisted to deal with the financial crisis brought about by the outbreak of the First World War. In 1915 he led the Anglo-French Financial Commission to seek financial assistance for the Allies from the United States. During the December 1916 Cabinet crisis, he acted as intermediary between Asquith and David Lloyd George.
In September 1917 Reading returned to the United States with the special appointment of high commissioner to the United States and Canada. In 1918 he was appointed British Ambassador to the United States, all the while remaining Lord Chief Justice. Returning to England for six months in 1918, he frequently attended the War Cabinet and was sent to France as Lloyd George's confidential emissary. He returned to the United States as Ambassador in 1919, relinquishing the post the same year. After the excitement of wartime diplomacy, he returned unwillingly to the bench in 1919, while seeking new appointments.
For his wartime public service he was appointed GCB in 1915, made Viscount Reading, of Erleigh in the County of Berkshire in 1916, and Earl of Reading as well as Viscount Erleigh, of Erleigh in the County of Berkshire, in 1917.[15][16]
Viceroy of India
Statue of Isaacs as Viceroy of India, originally sited in New Delhi but now in Eldon Square Gardens in Reading
In 1921, he resigned the chief justiceship to become Viceroy and Governor-General of India. Reading preferred a conciliatory policy: he was determined to implement the provisions of the Government of India Act 1919 and opposed racial discrimination. He personally received Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi and Muhammad Ali Jinnah, and visited Amritsar as a gesture of reconciliation. However, he ended up using force on several occasions: in 1921 he ordered the suppression of the Malabar rebellion, and in 1922 he put down Sikh unrest in the Punjab. The same year, he had Gandhi arrested for sedition. Reading cultivated good relations with the Indian princes, but forced two maharajas to abdicate.
On his return from India in 1926, he was made Marquess of Reading, the first man to rise from commoner to a marquessate since the Duke of Wellington.[3] The next year he was made Captain of Deal Castle in 1927, a position he held until 1934.[17] As Viceroy Reading was appointed GCSI and GCIE ex officio in 1921, and in 1922 was promoted to GCVO.
As a former viceroy, Reading was critical of some of the policies of his successor Lord Irwin. On 5 November 1929 he attacked Irwin in the House of Lords for using the term "Dominion Status" with regard to India, prior to the report of the Simon Commission.[18]
Later life and career
Lord Reading and his wife at Haifa Power Station, 1930s
In addition to five peerages and five knighthoods, Reading received many other honours. In 1925 he was appointed Grand Cordon of the Order of Leopold.[21] He was Captain of Deal Castle and Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, received the freedom of Reading and of London, and was a Bencher and Treasurer of the Middle Temple. He received honorary degrees from Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Columbia, Toronto, Calcutta, Cambridge and Oxford.
In his approach to politics, Isaacs was, according to Denis Judd,
"no blood-red Radical, and had 'little sympathy with the narrower aspects of the Nonconformist outlook which constituted so powerful an element in contemporary Liberalism.' Liberalism, nonetheless, was the natural party for him to support. Within his own father's lifetime Jews had been obliged to struggle to obtain full civil rights. Moreover, the Liberal party apparently stood for the noble principles of liberty, toleration and progress whereas the Tories, although somewhat disguised with the Unionist coalition, seemed to offer little in the way of enlightened policies. For a man who approved of social reform, yet wanted to stop well short of revolution, the Liberal party was the obvious home."[24]
Indeed, Isaacs championed such measures as the taxation of land values and reforms in the legal standing of unions, education, licensing, and military organization.[25] Isaacs also gave staunch official backing to David Lloyd George's initiative on land reform, together with his tax on land values[26] and national social insurance scheme.[27]
1 Following the 1857 Sepoy Mutiny. 2 As representatives of George VI in his role as King of India (1947–50). 3 As representatives of George VI and then Elizabeth II in their roles as King and Queen of Pakistan, respectively.
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