David Maxwell Fyfe, 1st Earl of Kilmuir

The Right Honourable The Earl of Kilmuir GCVO PC
Nuremberg sketch by Laura Knight (1946)
Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain
In office 18 October 1954 – 13 July 1962
Prime Minister	Winston Churchill Anthony Eden Harold Macmillan
Preceded by	The Lord Simonds
Succeeded by	The Lord Dilhorne
Home Secretary
In office 27 October 1951 – 19 October 1954
Prime Minister	Winston Churchill
Preceded by	James Chuter Ede
Succeeded by	Gwilym Lloyd George
Attorney-General for England
In office 25 May 1945 – 26 July 1945
Prime Minister	Winston Churchill
Preceded by	Sir Donald Somervell
Succeeded by	Sir Hartley Shawcross
Solicitor-General for England
In office 4 March 1942 – 25 May 1945
Prime Minister	Winston Churchill
Preceded by	Sir William Jowitt
Succeeded by	Sir Walter Monckton
Personal details
Born	29 May 1900 (1900-05-29) Edinburgh, Scotland, UK
Died	27 January 1967 (1967-01-28) (aged 66) Withyham, Sussex, England, UK
Nationality	British
Political party	Conservative
Spouse	Sylvia Harrison (m. 1925)
Children	3
Alma mater	Balliol College, Oxford

David Patrick Maxwell Fyfe, 1st Earl of Kilmuir, GCVO, PC (29 May 1900 – 27 January 1967), known as Sir David Maxwell Fyfe from 1942 to 1954 and as Viscount Kilmuir from 1954 to 1962, was a British Conservative politician, lawyer and judge who combined an industrious and precocious legal career with political ambitions that took him to the offices of Solicitor General, Attorney General, Home Secretary and Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain.

One of the prosecuting counsels at the Nuremberg Trials, he subsequently played a role in drafting the European Convention on Human Rights. As Home Secretary he led a crackdown against homosexuals in the UK in the 1950s, and declined to commute Derek Bentley's death sentence for the murder of a police officer. His political ambitions were ultimately dashed in Harold Macmillan's cabinet reshuffle of July 1962.