Sir Mathew Alexander Thorpe (born 30 July 1938) is a retired Lord Justice of Appeal, who served as one of the judges of the Court of Appeal of England and Wales from 1995 to 2013. Education Thorpe was educated at Stowe School and Balliol College, Oxford. Legal career Thorpe was called to the bar (Inner Temple) in 1961 and was appointed a Queen's Counsel in 1980. He was appointed a Recorder in 1982. He was appointed a High Court judge on 11 April 1988, assigned to the Family Division, and received the customary knighthood. He was appointed a Lord Justice of Appeal on 2 October 1995. Thorpe was appointed Deputy Head of Family Justice and Head of International Justice in January 2005. He retired on 31 July 2013 Jurisprudence He has presided over a number of important cases which have influenced the evolution of family law. He is regarded as a traditionalist in respect of parenting role but as a reactionary by his detractors. 1. Roles of men and women Re: S (Children) [2002] EWCA Civ 583 This case concerned a divorce where the mother had a high salary and the father stayed at home to look after the children under a shared parenting arrangement. If residence had been awarded to the father, the status quo in London would continue. However, if residence were awarded to the mother then she would move with the children to Linlithgow in Scotland. It was submitted on behalf of the father that it would be gender discrimination to decide residence in favour of the mother: if the roles were to be reversed, a father who proposed to abandon a lucrative career with the consequence that his wife and children would suffer a dramatic downturn in the standard of living, would not have the smallest chance of being given a residence order as his reward. This submission was rejected by LJ Thorpe on grounds of gender role: "That submission seems to me to ignore the realities, namely the very different role and functions of men and women, and the reality that those who sacrifice the opportunity to provide full-time care for their children in favour of a highly competitive professional race do, not uncommonly, question the purpose of all that striving, and question whether they should not re-evaluate their life before the children have grown too old to benefit." 2. Leave to remove from the