Born in
Jalandhar,
India, Richard Wilberforce was the son of
Samuel Wilberforce,
ICS, later a judge of the
Lahore High Court, and of Katherine Wilberforce, daughter of
John Sheepshanks,
Bishop of Norwich. His grandfather was
Reginald Wilberforce, who helped restore British order in Delhi, after the
Indian Rebellion of 1857. His great-grandfather was
Samuel Wilberforce,
Bishop of Winchester, and his great-great-grandfather was the
abolitionist William Wilberforce, a connection which had much influence upon him. Wilberforce spent the first seven years of his life in India, before being sent to England in 1914 on the outbreak of the
First World War. He attended five
preparatory schools, the last being
Sandroyd School. From Sandroyd he went to
Winchester College in 1920 where Monty Rendall, the headmaster, convinced him to drop Mathematics, in which he excelled, in favour of Classics, to broaden his career options. Wilberforce excelled in his new subject, winning all four top college prizes. , Oxford From Winchester, Wilberforce entered
New College, Oxford, where he was a
scholar, obtaining
First Class Honours in both
Classical Moderations (1928) and
Literae humaniores (1930). He won the Craven, Hertford and Ireland scholarships in Classics, as well as the
Eldon Law Scholarship. In 1932, on his third attempt, Wilberforce was elected a prize fellow of
All Souls College; the two other successful candidates that year were
Isaiah Berlin and
Patrick Reilly. Wilberforce remained a fellow of the college until his death seventy years later. Moving to London, Wilberforce was called to the Bar by the
Middle Temple in 1932. He was the pupil of the renowned Chancery
junior Wilfrid Hunt; a fellow pupil was
H. L. A. Hart. Wilberforce joined the chambers of
Andrew Clark (today called Wilberforce Chambers) and practised at the Chancery Bar but, lacking family connections, his earnings were meagre, although they began to increase toward the end of the decade.
Wartime service Fearing that war was inevitable, Wilberforce joined the Army reserves after the
Munich Agreement in 1938. At the outbreak of the
Second World War in 1939, Wilberforce volunteered for service in the
British Army, though he was advised against it, and was commissioned into the
Royal Artillery. In 1940 he was
aide-de-camp to Major-General
Bernard Paget, who led the British expeditionary force during the
Norwegian Campaign. After Norway, Wilberforce held various staff appointments before being posted to the
War Office where, as a
lieutenant colonel, he was put in charge of Army entertainments. In 1944 he was attached to the
Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force. In 1945 he drafted the
German Instrument of Surrender which Field Marshal
Wilhelm Keitel and others signed in Berlin on 8 May. After the German surrender, Wilberforce, by then a
brigadier, headed the British legal section of the
Allied Control Council. In 1946–7 he returned to London to serve as Under-Secretary at the Control Office for Germany and Austria. For his wartime service, Wilberforce was appointed an
OBE and received the American
Bronze Star. He retained the rank of honorary brigadier. While in Berlin, Wilberforce met Yvette Marie Lenoan, a captain in the
French Army and the daughter of Roger Lenoan, a judge of the
Cour de Cassation posted to Berlin. They married in 1947.
Return to the Bar Wilberforce returned to the Bar in 1947 when the Control Office for Germany and Austria was abolished. His old chambers had disappeared, forcing him to find new accommodation. His practice was at first very small, and he considered leaving the Bar. He acted for
Prince Ernest Augustus of Hanover to be recognized as a British subject under the
Sophia Naturalization Act 1705. He became a member of the
Bar Council in 1951 and was appointed a
Queen's Counsel in 1954. He participated in several
Foreign Office cases, including
Corfu Channel case and the Norwegian
Fisheries case in the
International Court of Justice. He was also appointed as the British legal member of the
International Civil Aviation Organization. He was appointed a
Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George for services in relation to the
Warsaw Convention in 1956. In the
1950 election, he stood for
Kingston upon Hull Central as the
Conservative candidate, in the city formerly represented by his ancestor William Wilberforce, but lost to the incumbent
Labour MP
Mark Hewitson. == Judicial career ==