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Cyril John Radcliffe

Cyril John Radcliffe, 1st Viscount Radcliffe GBE, PC (1899 - 1977) was a British lawyer and law lord most famous for his partitioning of the British Imperial territory of India.

Radcliffe was born in Llanychan, Denbighshire. He was conscripted in World War I but his poor eyesight limited the options for service so he was allocated to in the Labour Corps. He attended Oxford University, was elected to a Fellowship at All Souls College, and was called to the bar in 1924; the meteoric legal rise that followed was interrupted by World War II.

Radcliffe joined the Ministry of Information becoming its Director-General by 1941, where he worked closely with the Minister Brendan Bracken. After the war he resumed legal practice but this was again interrupted in 1947 when he was given the chairmanship of the two boundary committees set up with the passing of the Indian Independence Act: his sole Indian connection was the death of his eldest brother while on active service in the country. The Radcliffe Award was carried out in the greatest secrecy but there was still pressure to adjust the line between the two emergent nations of India and Pakistan for political reasons. The immediate consequences of partition were horrendous for both countries though it is doubtful that anything Radcliffe could have done would have made a great difference; even the most carefully crafted border would have provoked the massive population migrations which resulted. Radcliffe was at all turns harassed and hurried by outgoing Viceroy Mountbatten, who turned out to be ill prepared for the consequences of the Awards.

• 3 June 1947 : Cyril Radcliffe appointed as the chairman of the Boundary Commission
• 8 July 1947 : Cyril Radcliffe arrives in Delhi
• 13 August 1947 : Cyril Radcliffe submits the report (the partition map)
• 14,15 August 1947 : Pakistan and India were divided and declared as independent nations.

Radcliffe was made a law lord and life peer in 1949 as Baron Radcliffe, of Werneth in the County of Lancashire. He had not previously been a judge; this distinction was previously achieved only by Lord Carson (in 1921), Lord Macmillan (in 1930) and Lord Reid. In the 1950s he chaired a string of public enquiries in addition to his legal duties and continued to hold numerous trusteeships, governorships and chairmanships right up until his death. He was also a frequent public speaker and wrote numerous books: he gave the BBC Reith Lecture in 1951 on the subject The problem of power, and the Oxford University Romanes Lecture in 1963 on Mountstuart Elphinstone.

He was made KBE in 1944, GBE in 1948, became member of the privy council in 1949 and advanced to a Viscountcy in 1962, which became extinct with his death fifteen years later.

• Radcliffe Line
• Partition of India