Lord Bill Wedder­burn

Published: 5 July, 2012
by JOHN GULLIVER

JURISTS, peers of the realm and the leader of Britain’s biggest trade union, all lined up on Tuesday to pay tribute to the great Lord Bill Wedder­burn.

They spoke at a packed memorial meeting at the London School of Economics about a man who was recognised as the doyen of lawyers on the subject of employment law.

Reliving his earlier days in Liverpool, Jim McCluskey, leader of the Unite union, remembered that many of the dockers became “barrack room lawyers” after reading Lord Wedderburn’s famous book, Workers and the Law.

In an often-quoted passage from the book, Lord Wedderburn, who lived in Highgate, wrote that all workers want from the law was that they be “left alone”.