Harry Herbert Trusted

Sir Harry Herbert Trusted, QC (27 June 1888 – 1985) was a British Colonial Attorney-General and Chief Justice.

He was born in Birmingham, the only son of the Rev. Wilson Trusted of Salisbury and educated at Ellesmere College and Trinity Hall, Cambridge. He studied law at the Inner Temple, where he was called to the bar in 1913. He served overseas in the Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry during the First World War (1914–1918).^[1]

In 1925 he was appointed a Puisne Judge in the Leeward Islands Supreme Court, becoming Attorney-General in 1927. In 1929 he was transferred to be Attorney-General of Cyprus.^[1]

From 1932 to 1936 he served as Attorney-General of the British Mandate for Palestine, replacing Michael McDonnell as Chief Justice in 1936.^[2] As Chief Justice he is remembered for granting additional powers to the Bedouin Tribal Courts on condition they abandoned the practice of ordeal by fire (Bish'a).^[3] He was knighted in 1938.^[4]

In 1941 he moved to be Chief Justice of the Federated Malay States, which lasted until 1946. For much of that time he was a Prisoner of War of the invading Japanese army.^[5]

In 1948 he chaired a Commission of Inquiry into the anti-Jewish riots in the British Protectorate of Aden.^[6]

He died in Surrey in 1985. He had married Mary Warmington, daughter of Sir Marshall Warmington, 1st Baronet. They had 2 sons and 3 daughters. His son John Marshall Trusted died at 21.^[1]

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