James Fawcett

Fawcett was born in Wallingford, which was then in Berkshire. He was the son of Joseph Fawcett, a clergyman in the Church of England from a family of old Yorkshire gentry (Fawcett of Sandford Hall), and Edith ('''' Scattergood). He was educated at the Dragon School in Oxford and at Rugby School, and then read classics at New College, Oxford. He graduated with first-class honours. He won a prize fellowship at All Souls College, Oxford, and was again a fellow at All Souls from 1961 to 1969. He won the Eldon Law Scholarship and was called to the bar by the Inner Temple in 1938. ==Career==

He worked practising as a barrister on the North-eastern Circuit. and served as the torpedo officer of a destroyer. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross in 1942 for sinking an Italian destroyer. and took silk to become a Queen's Counsel in 1985. == Personal life ==

Fawcett married Frances Beatrice Lowe, the daughter of Elias Avery Lowe and Helen Tracy Lowe-Porter, in St Pancras in 1937. They had met many years before, while both pupils at the Dragon School. They had one son, the journalist and author Edmund Fawcett, and four daughters. One of their daughters was the artist Charlotte Johnson Wahl, mother of former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, the journalist Rachel Johnson, former government minister and life peer Jo Johnson, and the entrepreneur Leo Johnson. He enjoyed astronomy and played the piano. He died at Radcliffe Infirmary in Oxford after suffering a stroke, survived by his wife and five children. == References ==