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Ross Cranston

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Sir Ross Cranston
Solicitor General for England and Wales
In office
28 July 1998 – 11 June 2001
Prime MinisterTony Blair
Preceded byLord Falconer
Succeeded byHarriet Harman
Member of Parliament
for Dudley North
In office
2 May 1997 – 11 April 2005
Preceded byConstituency Established
Succeeded byIan Austin
Personal details
Born (1948-07-23) 23 July 1948 (age 76)
Brisbane, Australia
Political partyLabour
Alma materUniversity of Queensland, Harvard Law School, University of Oxford

Sir Ross Frederick Cranston (born 23 July 1948 in Brisbane, Australia), styled The Hon. Mr Justice Cranston, is a High Court judge, formerly an academic lawyer and Labour Party politician, in the United Kingdom.

Early life

He attended Wavell State High School in Brisbane, Queensland. He was later a student at the University of Queensland where he was awarded a BA in 1969 and an LLB in 1970. From the Harvard Law School, he gained an LLM in 1973. From Oxford University, he gained a DPhil in 1976 and much later a DCL in 1998. He became a barrister at Gray's Inn in 1976.

Cranston was a professor at the London School of Economics from 1992-7 and the holder of the Cassell Chair in Commercial Law from 1993 to 1997. Before that he held academic posts in the UK and Australia and the Sir John Lubbock chair in Banking Law at QMW, being a professor of Law at Queen Mary and Westfield College from 1986-91.

Parliamentary career

He contested Richmond (Yorks) in 1992. He was elected as Member of Parliament for Dudley North at the 1997 general election with more than half of the votes,[1] and served as Solicitor General from 1998 to 2001, when he returned to the back benches. After speculation amongst colleagues, he announced in 2005 that he would not stand for Parliament again in the 2005 election. He was succeeded by Ian Austin.

Law career

He was the Centennial Professor of Law at the LSE from 2005 to 2007.[2]

He was appointed as a High Court judge in October 2007, assigned to the Queen's Bench Division.[3] Marcel Berlins wrote at the time that his appointment was unusual among judicial appointments in recent years, given that it occurred so soon after the end of his political career.[4]

References

Parliament of the United Kingdom
New constituency Member of Parliament for Dudley North
19972005
Succeeded by
Legal offices
Preceded by Solicitor General for England and Wales
1998–2001
Succeeded by