Sidney Rowlatt

Sir Sidney Arthur Taylor Rowlatt, KCSI (20 July 1862 – 1 March 1945) was an English lawyer and judge, best remembered for his controversial presidency of the Rowlatt Committee, a sedition committee appointed in 1918 by the British Indian Government to evaluate the links between political terrorism in India, especially Bengal and the Punjab, and the German government and the Bolsheviks in Russia. The committee gave rise to the Rowlatt Act, an extension of the Defence of India Act 1915 Honours being given for racial policy.

Sir

Sidney Rowlatt
Born
Sidney Arthur Taylor Rowlatt

(1862-07-20)20 July 1862
Cairo, Egypt
Died1 March 1945(1945-03-01) (aged 82)
NationalityBritish
EducationFettes College
Alma materKing's College, Cambridge
OccupationLawyer, judge
Years active1886-1932
Board member ofRowlatt Committee
Spouse(s)
Elizabeth Hemmingway
​
​
(m. 1890)​
Children6, including John
RelativesJustin Rowlatt (great-grandson)

Early life
See also: History of Egypt under the Muhammad Ali dynasty and History of Egypt under the British

Sidney Rowlatt was born in 1862 in Cairo and brought up in Alexandria. His father was Arthur Rowlatt, sent out by the Bank of England to take a post at the Bank of Egypt, and his second wife Amelia, daughter of Sidney Terry, merchant. His parents married on 9 May 1860 at the Anglican church in Alexandria. Her English grandparents, John and Sarah Friend, had moved to Egypt in 1825, and the family maintained working ties there for well over a century.

Sidney Rowlatt was the eldest son and had several siblings, two of whom stayed in Egypt. Frederick became Governor of the National Bank and Charles became Director of Customs Administration. Fred's daughter Mary wrote a memoir of the five generations, A Family in Egypt (1956).

Sidney Terry appears to have been the grandfather of Sidney Sonnino, making Sidney Rowlatt a cousin of Italy's nineteenth prime minister.[1]

The Rowlatt children grew up in Alexandria, living above the Bank building most of the year, and decamping to the nearby beach of Ramleh during the hottest months, as his mother's family had done for generations. In 1868 the Rowlatts built a house there, one of the first buildings in the resort, on a road later re-named after Arthur Rowlatt. They also owned a Nile boat named the Ablah, normally moored in Cairo.[2]

Sidney Rowlatt and his brothers were sent to Britain to preparatory and public schools. He attended Fettes College in Edinburgh and then King's College, Cambridge, where he was a distinguished classics scholar.[3] His younger brother John Friend Rowlatt followed him to Cambridge and acted as the non-rowing president at The Boat Race 1892.[4]

After graduation, Sidney Rowlatt became a fellow of his college and taught high classics for a while at Eton, where he was popular with his students.

Career

Rowlatt decided to take up the law and was called to the Bar by the Inner Temple in 1886. He joined the Oxford circuit but made slow progress, devilling for Robert Finlay. When William Danckwerts took silk in 1900, the post of junior counsel to the Inland Revenue fell vacant and Finlay recommended Rowlatt. Then, in 1905 Finlay, now Attorney-General, gave him the post of Treasury devil, a role in which Rowlatt excelled with his energy and affability. He became a bencher of the Inner Temple in 1906 and later its Treasurer.

Rowlatt was appointed Recorder of Windsor and, in 1912, a judge of the King's Bench Division of the High Court. He was a courteous and scholarly judge, quick to see a point and unafraid to make up his mind.

In 1918 he chaired the inquiry into "Criminal conspiracies connected with revolutionary movements in India", the Rowlatt Committee. The inquiry led to the controversial Rowlatt Act in 1919. This unpopular legislation provided for stricter control of the press, arrests without warrant, indefinite detention without trial, and juryless in camera trials for proscribed political acts. The accused were denied the right to know the accusers and the evidence used in the trial.[5] Indian nationalists called for protest against the Rowlatt Act, which led to an unprecedented response of unrest and protests. In the Punjab, this unrest led to the Amritsar Massacre.[6] Accepting the report of the Repressive Laws Committee, the Government of India repealed this act in March 1922.[7]

He was renowned for the many tax cases that he heard, particularly between 1923 and 1932, giving many clear, concise and authoritative judgements, many of which are still cited today.[8]

Rowlatt also heard murder trials, including that of George Stagg, who was found guilty of the murder of Aston Villa footballer, Tommy Ball in November 1923.[9]

He retired in 1932 and was sworn of the Privy Council, sitting several times in the Judicial Committee. He chaired the Royal Commission on Betting (1932–33) and during World War II, he sat as chairman of the General Claims Tribunal.

Personal life

Rowlatt married Elizabeth Hemmingway in 1890 and the couple had four sons and two daughters. His son John Rowlatt was also a lawyer, who specialised in drafting tax legislation.[10]

Media correspondent Justin Rowlatt is Sidney's great-grandson; in February 2015, Justin became the BBC's South Asia correspondent, posted in New Delhi, and in an article in August 2017 analysed his great-grandfather's drafting of the Rowlatt Act and the events it generated in the context of post-1947 India-UK relations.[11]

Honours

Notes
  1. Carlucci, Paola (20 March 2015). Italian sexualities uncovered, 1789-1914. ISBN 978-1-137-39697-6.
  2. Rowlatt, Mary (1956). A Family in Egypt. London: Robert Hale Limited.
  3. "Rowlatt, Sidney Arthur Taylor (RWLT880SA)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
  4. One hundred and fifty years of the Oxford and Cambridge boat race : an official history. Precision Press. 1979. pp. 50–51. ISBN 978-0-95-006387-4.
  5. Vohra, Ranbir (2001). The Making of India: A Historical Survey, 2nd Ed. Armonk, New York: M.E. Sharpe. ISBN 0-7656-0711-5. p. 126.
  6. Swami P (1 November 1997). "Jallianwala Bagh revisited". The Hindu. Archived from the original on 28 November 2007. Retrieved 7 October 2007.
  7. The history of British India: a chronology, John F. Riddick, 2006
  8. Thomas, Richard. "Sir Sidney and Sir John: the Rowlatts and Tax" (PDF). British Tax Review. 2011 (2): 210–28. Retrieved 20 January 2021.
  9. Footballer Murdered – Ex-policeman sentenced to death, www.londonhearts.com (Newspaper article), 19 February 1924, retrieved 4 November 2011
  10. "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 17 July 2018. Cite journal requires |journal= (help)CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  11. Rowlatt, Justin (13 August 2017). "Independence: Do Indians care about the British any more?". BBC News. Retrieved 13 August 2017.

References
  • Obituary, The Times, 3 March 1945, p.7, col E
  • Lovett, Sir Verney (1920), A History of the Indian Nationalist Movement, New York, Frederick A. Stokes Company, ISBN 81-7536-249-9
  • Sarkar, B.K.; Lovett, Verney (1921), "A History of the Indian Nationalist Movement.", Political Science Quarterly, 36 (1): 136–138, doi:10.2307/2142669, hdl:2027/coo1.ark:/13960/t3nw01g05, JSTOR 2142669.
  • Tinker, Hugh (1968), "India in the First World War and after", Journal of Contemporary History, 3 (4): 89–107, doi:10.1177/002200946800300407.
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