William Edgar Rayner Goddard, Baron Goddard, (10 April 1877 – 29 May 1971) was Lord Chief Justice of England from 1946 to 1958, known for his strict sentencing and mostly conservative views despite being the first Lord Chief Justice to be appointed by a Labour government, as well as the first to possess a law degree. Goddard's no-nonsense reputation was reflected in a number of nicknames that he acquired, which included: 'The Tiger', 'Justice-in-a-jiffy', and—from Winston Churchill—'Lord God-damn'. He was considered one of the last hanging judges. Early life and career William Edgar Rayner Goddard was born on 10 April 1877 at Bassett Road, Notting Hill, London, the second of three sons and the third of five children of the solicitor Charles Goddard (22 February 1843 – 27 May 1922) and his wife Janet née Jobson, who was from Sheffield (1851 – 8 June 1934). He went by his third name Rayner throughout his life. Goddard attended Marlborough College, where he decided on a career in law. In later life he vigorously denied the frequent claims of Lord Jowitt that he had amused his school contemporaries by reciting, word for word, the form of the death sentence upon those whom he disliked. He later attended Trinity College, Oxford and graduated with an upper second-class degree in jurisprudence in 1898, and gained a Blue in athletics. He was called to the Bar by the Inner Temple in 1899. On 31 May 1906 Goddard married Marie Schuster, the daughter of the banker Sir Felix Otto Schuster, with whom he was to have three daughters. She died on 16 May 1928 during an operation at the age of 44. Goddard never remarried. Goddard built a strong reputation in commercial cases on the Western Circuit and was appointed as Recorder of Poole (a part-time Judgeship) in 1917. Goddard was appointed a King's Counsel in 1923, transferred to be Recorder of Bath in 1925, and eventually Recorder of Plymouth in 1928. He was elected a Bencher of his inns in 1929 and undertook work for the Barristers' Benevolent Association. In the general election of 1929, Goddard agreed, against his better judgement, to contest the Kensington South constituency as an unofficial Conservative candidate. The sitting Conservative MP, Sir William Davison, had been a defendant in a divorce case, and a local committee thought the newly enfranchised young women voters would refuse to support him. In the