John Francis Donaldson, Baron Donaldson of Lymington, (6 October 1920 – 31 August 2005) was a senior British judge who served as Master of the Rolls for ten years, from 1982 to 1992. He is best known in some circles for his role as presiding judge in the infamous Guildford Four miscarriage of justice. Early and private life He was born at 6 King Street, St Marylebone, London, the son of Malcolm Donaldson (1884-1973), consultant gynaecologist, and his first wife, Evelyn Helen Marguerite, née Gilroy. His father was a Harley Street-based gynaecologist. Donaldson attended first Charterhouse and then Trinity College, Cambridge. He served as chairman of the Federation of University Conservative and Unionist Associations, and harboured ambitions of representing the Conservative Party as a Member of Parliament . He was an Independent Ratepayers Councillor for the County Borough of Croydon from 1949 to 1953. After graduating with a lower second class degree in 1941, he joined the war effort as a commissioned officer in the Royal Signals. He then served with the Guards Armoured Divisional Signals, both domestically and in North-West Europe, until the end of the war in 1945. He served in the military government of Schleswig-Holstein, and was demobbed as a lieutenant-colonel aged 25. He married Dorothy Mary Warwick (later known as Dame Mary Donaldson), in 1945, having met her at Middlesex Hospital where she was working as a nurse. She later became the first woman to be a Member of the City of London Court of Common Council, the first female Alderman, the first female Sheriff and, finally, in 1983, the first female Lord Mayor of London. Together, they had two daughters and a son; his wife predeceased him in October 2003. Legal career Donaldson was called to the Bar in 1946 as a Harmsworth Scholar at the Middle Temple. He joined the chambers of Sir Henry Willink, QC at 3 Essex Court and built a successful tort and commercial practice. He was made a Queen's Counsel in 1961, and became a High Court Judge when he was appointed to the Queen's Bench Division and knighted in 1966 at the age of 45. He remained the youngest High Court judge for a number of years. He became the first (and last) President of the National Industrial Relations Court (NIRC, also known as the Industrial Relations Tribunal) from its formation by Ted Heath's Conservative government in 1971 under