RAWLINSON, Peter 1919-2006
(Peter Anthony Grayson Rawlinson)

OBITUARY NOTICE—

See index for CA sketch: Born June 26, 1919, in Birkenhead, Cheshire, England; died June 28, 2006. Politician, lawyer, and author. Rawlinson was a Tory politician who served as Britain's attorney general under Prime Minister Edward Heath's administration. While Rawlinson was attending Christ's College, Cambridge, England entered World War II and he enlisted in the Irish Guards. He attained the rank of major and served in North Africa. After the war, he was called to the Bar by the Inner Temple and became a defense attorney. By the early 1950s, he was becoming involved in politics. First running on the Tory ticket in 1951 for the Hackney Central seat in Parliament, he lost the election. But when a seat opened up in the conservative Epsom district, he ran again and won in 1955. Rawlinson maintained his office at Epsom, which became Epsom & Ewell in 1974, until 1978. Over the years, he served as solicitor general from 1962 to 1964, and then was attorney general from 1970 to 1974. Also made a member of the Senate of the Inns of Court in 1968, Rawlinson was known for his strict position on crime and for the energy he brought to his work. As attorney general, he not only served as an administrator but was more active in court than anyone to have held the office. He prosecuted many cases himself, including cases against Irish Republican Army terrorists and in the notorious Richardson and McKay murders. Having been knighted in 1962, when he retired from theHouse of Commons in 1968 Rawlinson was given a life peerage in the House of Lords, where he was Baron of Ewell in the County of Surrey. Rawlinson retired from practice as an attorney in 1985, and he spent his later years writing crime novels. Among these are Hatred and Contempt (1992), which won the Crime Writers Association's Rumpole Award, The Caverel Claim (1998), and A Relic of War (2004). He also published his memoirs, A Price Too High: An Autobiography, in 1989.

OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES:

BOOKS

Rawlinson, Peter, A Price Too High: An Autobiography, Weidenfeld & Nicolson (London, England), 1989.

PERIODICALS

Times (London, England), June 30, 2006, p. 67.