File E/27 - University College of North Wales, Bangor

Herbert Edmund Davies (he later assumed the surname of Edmund-Davies) was born on 15 July 1906 at Mountain Ash, Mid Glamorgan. He was the third son of Morgan John Davies and Elizabeth Maud Edmunds. He married Sarah Eurwen Williams-James (d. 1991) in 1935. He was educated at Mountain Ash Grammar School, King's College, London and Exeter College, Oxford, where he won the Vinerian scholarship. He was called to the Bar by Gray's Inn, 1929. He became a lecturer and examiner at the London School of Economics, 1930-1931. He joined the Army Officers' Emergency Reserve, 1938, and was commissioned into the Royal Welch Fusiliers, 1940. He was seconded to the Judge Advocate-General Department and became Assistant Judge Advocate-General, 1944-1945 (Lt-Col 1944). He took Silk in 1943 and served as Recorder of Merthyr Tydfil, 1942-1944; Swansea, 1944-1953; and Cardiff, 1953-1958. He became Chairman of Denbighshire Quarter Sessions, 1953-1964; Judge of High Court of Justice, Queen's Bench Division, 1958-1966; a Lord Justice of Appeal, 1966-1974; a Lord of Appeal in Ordinary, 1974-1981 and Foreign Office Observer, at the Cairo espionage trials, 1957. He was Chairman of the Transport Users' Consultative Committee for Wales, 1959-1961; Tribunal of Inquiry into Aberfan Disaster, 1966; Council of Law Reporting 1967-1972; Home Secretary's Criminal Law Revision Committee, 1969-1977; Home Secretary's Police Inquiry Committee, 1977-1979 and Use of Welsh in Courts Inquiry, 1973. He was President of London Welsh Trust/London Welsh Association, 1982-1992; University College of Swansea, 1965-1975; Hon. Standing Counsel, University of Wales, 1947-1957; and Pro-Chancellor, University of Wales, 1974-1985. In 1958, he was knighted on becoming a High Court Judge of the Queen's Bench Division. He was created a life peer as Baron Edmund-Davies of Aberpennar, Mid Glamorgan in 1974. He died 26 December 1992.