Christmas Humphreys was one of the key people in the history of Twentieth Century Western Buddhism.

He was born in 1901 in London, son of the jurist Sir Travers Humphreys. Humphreys himself would later become a judge. While he was studying at university, he came across, and developed an interest in Buddhism. This led him to, in 1924, found the Buddhist Society in London, which is still active today. The society hold classes in Buddhism and meditation and also publishes a quarterly journal named The Middle Way. The society, reflecting Humphreys' belief that Buddhism in the west should draw on all forms of Buddhism, is an umbrella organisation for all major schools; Theravada, Mahayana and Vajrayana. Humphreys himself was most drawn to Theravada and Zen, as were the majority of the early English Buddhists.

He has edited and written many books, 34 being on mainly Buddhist subjects, his writing takes a rather populist in comparison to the academic approach that was common of his era. He was also involved with the early Theosophical Society of Madame Blavatsky which, although still in existence, are no longer significantly active.

The early Buddhist popularisers that he had associations with were Edward Conze, Jiyu Kennet and Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki who were all instrumental in popularising both Soto and Rinzai Zen in the West.

He retired from his job as a judge in 1976, and devoted the last years of his life to Buddhism, remaining president of the Buddhist Society until his death in 1983.

Sources:

• Cristmas Humphreys: A Buddhist Judge In Twentieth Century London By Damien P. Horigan, Korean Journal of Comparative Law, vol. 24. p. 1-16
• The Buddhist Society UK: www.thebuddhistsociety.org.uk/

Christmas Humphreys. An interesting person, although with a name like that, how could he not be? Chiefly notable for being one of the most prominent Buddhists in Britain, as WoodenRobot's write-up explains in more detail. This is interesting to me because, as well as his religious activities, Humphreys was one of the foremost prosecutors of his day. And given that his day was the 1950s, more or less, this involved a fair amount of sending people to the gallows. These days, you hear Buddhism and you're likely to think of happy, peaceful, quiet meditation and wishing no harm on any living thing. The Dalai Lama, if you like. Humphreys' Buddhism... wasn't like that.

"If it was my karma to prosecute, it was the karma of the prisoner not only to be prosecuted by me but also to have committed that crime or at least to be on trial for it...and his death, if he were hanged, it would be the result of his causing, and might, as it were, wipe out the causing in the infinitely complex, infinitely subtle weaving of this cosmic web."

Not the compromising kind of man, then. As the Buddha said, existence is suffering, and Christmas seemingly had few qualms about assisting those before the court in severing their attachment to worldly desires. So to speak. After all, one doesn't get to be a judge by being reluctant about this sort of thing, and Humphreys had a great deal of experience; in point of fact, he had been involved in the International Military Tribunal for the Far East - the post Second World War war crimes trial for Japanese leaders. This in itself is an odd coincidence, given that Japanese Buddhism had been co-opted during the war to justify all manner of atrocities; Brian Victoria's Zen at War is highly recommended here, especially for those whose image of Buddhism historically focuses mainly on chanting and being kind to small animals.

Whatever his religious views, some of Humphreys' prosecutions do rather give one pause for thought. Perhaps most notable is the case of Derek Bentley, a profoundly developmentally disabled nineteen year-old man who was hanged on rather dubious evidence in 1953. Bentley and a friend, Christopher Craig, had been attempting to rob a warehouse. They were seen; the police arrived, and as they arrested Bentley he broke free, and then allegedly shouted 'Let him have it, Chris', whereupon Craig shot one police officer dead and wounded another. Craig could not face the death penalty as he was sixteen at the time of the offence, and so Bentley was prosecuted for murder. Humphreys argued in court that by 'let him have it', Bentley was encouraging Craig to shoot, rather than literally give up the weapon, and under joint enterprise this made him culpable. Christmas carried the day, and Bentley was executed. He was pardoned posthumously in 1998, which I imagine was small comfort.

Similarly, Humphreys prosecuted Timothy Evans - a man accused of having murdered his wife and daughter - successfully, leading to his execution by hanging. Evans had confessed, but later recanted, claiming - with some considerable justification - that he had been coerced by the police (there have been similar claims around Derek Bentley's statements to them, which rather neatly indicates the CID's methods at the time). Throughout the trial, Evans maintained that his neighbour was the murderer; Humphreys put the neighbour on the stand, where he impressed the jury enough to secure a guilty verdict and a sentence of death against Evans. All very well, apart from the neighbour having been the notorious serial killer John Christie. Evans' conviction too was found to have been a miscarriage of justice, but around fifty years too late for Evans himself. Christie ultimately strangled at least eight women to death before being caught, tried and hanged himself.

What then to make of Christmas Humphreys? Certainly a gifted legal mind, talented at cross-examination. He himself claimed he never prosecuted a death penalty case where he wasn't certain of the defendant's guilt, which speaks poorly for his instincts. But at the same time, Humphreys is in large part responsible for the abolition of the death penalty in Britain. If fewer of his capital cases had been travesties, hanging could well have clung on in British law for far longer than it did. And in the end we're left with a very deterministic sort of man. In his own words:

"It (mercy) never came into my mind because, you must understand, how we play in parts as if on a stage. I have my part to play. Defending counsel has his. The judge has his. The jury have theirs... Mercy never came into it. It was never suggested. It was never part of it. There could be no mercy in what seemed to be cold-blooded murder."