Lord Chorley QC (Cassel Professor of Commercial and Industrial Law, 1930-1945)

chorley, theo

Theo (Lord) Chorley QC founded the Modern Law Review in 1937, remained its editor for over three decades, and regarded it as his greatest achievement. The MLR’s annual lecture bears his name. The son of a solicitor, he graduated from Oxford and was called to the bar. In the 1920’s he taught commercial law for the Law Society and in 1930 became Sir Ernest Cassel Professor of Commercial and Industrial Law in the University of London, based at LSE. He stood unsuccessfully as a Labour candidate in the 1945 election. Later that year he was appointed to the House of Lords and became a whip, helping to pilot the Attlee government’s large legislative programme through the second chamber. Chorley had relinquished his chair, but after 1950 returned to LSE to teach, write and edit the MLR.  For over two decades he sat as a part-time judge. He was active in the campaign to abolish capital punishment, prison reform and addressing youth offending. As a native to the Lake District and an avid mountaineer, Chorley became a prominent conservationist and served in leading positions in the National Trust, Campaign to Protect Rural England, the Open Spaces Society, the Alpine Club and Mountaineering Council.