Sir Donald Leslie FINNEMORE (1889-1974) was a highly regarded High Court Judge honoured with a knighthood, who held many distinguished roles and remained an influential figure in the Birmingham Boys’ Brigade throughout his long and distinguished career and life.
A signature appearing on my maternal grandparents Charles BARNES and May MANSELL’s 1927 marriage certificate , alerted my curiosity. It was for DL FINNEMORE, the minister who presided over their marriage service at The People’s Chapel, Great King Street Birmingham.
1927 Marriage May MANSELL to Charles BARNES The People’s Chapel, Great King Street Birmingham (Family Collection)
My curiosity was further fuelled by the knowledge that he was known by my grandparents as ‘Judge FINNEMORE’, by others as ‘Skipper’ or simply as DLF. I was at that time, unsure whether ‘Judge’ was merely his nickname, or an indication of his status.
His presence at this event suggests how significant a figure DLF had been in my family’s past. I also knew from family stories and photos that he was involved in the Boys’ Life Brigade, which later became The Boys’ Brigade an organization crucial to my own family’s welfare and upbringing.
In order to find out more about DLF, I first examined a selection of published sources, and then went on to consider DLF’s educational records and material relating to what I soon discovered was his long and distinguished legal career.
I used a variety of original sources, and am indebted to numerous organisations for their assistance, including The King Edward’s Foundation Archive, Schools of King Edward VI in Birmingham; Oxford University; Pembroke College, Oxford; The 1st A Birmingham Battalion of the Boys’ Brigade and The People’s Chapel [Baptist], Great Kings Street, Birmingham, The Inner Temple Archive; The British Red Cross, The Society of Genealogists, The Harding Law Library and the University of Birmingham; The Wolfson Centre for Archival Research; The Library of Birmingham and The Birmingham History Forum.
Through these various organisations, I was able to trace DLF’s education, his rise through the Judicial system and his involvement in the 1stA Boys’ Brigade, Birmingham.
Boys’ Brigade
DLF and others Boys’ Brigade Camp, c1930s author's own photo
DLF’s interest and passion for the Boys Life Brigade, which later became the Boys’ Brigade, was undoubtedly spurned on by his personal belief in what was right, his family background and his Christian faith. The photo above was taken at a Boys’ Brigade camp sometime in the 1930s, and includes DLF seated on the bike, far left holding a cane, and my grandfather standing 2nd right.
The Boys’ Brigade (BB) is a Christian Youth movement, which was founded in 1883 by William A Smith in Glasgow, and based on the ‘twin pillars’ of Religion and Discipline. Smith identified that by encouraging teenage boys to take part in military (dummy) rifle drills mimicking the heroic soldiers of the day he could maintain discipline and instil Christian beliefs. BB officers led by way of example and acting as role models and mentors for their boys. Through coordinated activities the BB provided a challenging environment for young people to work and play together in an informal framework of education, care and understanding.
However, it was The Boys’ Life Brigade (BLB) founded later in 1899 by Dr John Brown Paton, under the auspices of the National Sunday School Union, that DLF was first associated with. The BLB movement took root amongst the Baptist and Quaker congregations, who particularly disliked the ‘militarist’ tendencies of The Boys’ Brigade. The Boys’ Life Brigade used the discipline of drills and marching, but without the rifles as used by the Boys’ Brigade. The BLB 1st Birmingham Company watchword was “Think pure; Speak true; Right wrong; Follow the Christ”.
Following the atrocities of the First World War, the use of rifles in the boys’ drills was dropped by the Boys’ Brigade, and the two organisations merged. DLF was instrumental in founding the 1st Birmingham Company of The Boys’ Life Brigade in 1913 at The People’s [Baptist] Chapel, Great Kings Street, Birmingham, and held various roles as captain, president and vice-president; and remained as the 1st A Birmingham Boys’ Brigade’s captain for 60 years, even attending camps well into his 80s.
Like many, DLF’s legal career was interrupted by the First World War, where I discovered that he served in the Wounded and Missing Department of the Volunteer Aid Detachment of the British Red Cross. Once normality resumed following the war, so did DLF’s legal career, to which he dedicated his life in tandem to his devotion to the Boys’ Brigade.
Legal Career
In the course of my research, I was to discover a man who was equally at home in the summer camps of the Boys’ Brigade as he was donning the ‘black cap’ at the judicial bench. During his long and successful legal career, DLF was to play an important role as Judge in many significant trials, including that of the infamous serial killer, John Reginald Halliday Christie in 1953.
This case gained worldwide attention and continues to this day to grip the public’s imagination. Christie, the ‘Strangler of Notting Hill’, became the subject of several films, dramas and documentaries, including ‘10 Rillington Place’, the site of Christie’s heinous crimes. The extract below provides a sense of the gravitas of Christie’s trial, in Judge FINNEMORE summary up to the jury :
There was “no dispute” that Christie killed his wife, Finnemore said. He confessed she was among at least seven women he gassed and choked to death in his Notting Hill murder house. But the judge [Finnemore] warned that the defence plea of insanity “must be looked at carefully” because “it is not a difficult thing for a person to say when he has no other defence, ‘I was mad’”.
25 June 1953 The Tuscaloosa Times, USA
Undoubtedly influenced by his family’s Baptist and Liberal background, DLF’s belief in the temperance movement and giving the poor boys of Birmingham a better chance in life was a constant throughout his long and distinguished life. This is suitably summed up by the nickname for his judicial chambers, which were known as ‘Finnemore’s Cocoa Chambers’. Cocoa being the drink of choice, and advocated by the famous Birmingham Quaker Family, the Cadburys.
The 1964 oil on canvas painting of DLF by Henry Marvel Carr suitably portrays this tall and dignified man, who was driven by his own clear Christian beliefs in what was good, which he applied in his judicial duties and with his lifelong devotion to the boys of the Birmingham Boys’ Brigade.
