Travers Christmas Humphreys, QC (15 February 1901 – 13 April 1983)[1] was a British jurist who prosecuted several controversial cases in the 1940s and 1950s, and who later became a judge at the Old Bailey. He also wrote a number of works on Mahayana Buddhism and in his day was the best-known British convert to Buddhism. In 1924 he founded what became the London Buddhist Society, which was to have a seminal influence on the growth of the Buddhist tradition in Britain. His former home in St John's Wood, London, is now a Buddhist temple. He was an enthusiastic proponent of the Oxfordian theory of Shakespeare authorship.
Early life
Humphreys was born in Ealing, Middlesex, the son of Travers Humphreys, a noted barrister and judge.[2] His given name "Christmas" is unusual, but, along with "Travers", had a long history in the Humphreys family.[1] Among friends and family he was generally known as 'Toby'.[1] The death of his elder brother during World War I shocked Humphreys into reflection about his beliefs, and at age 17 he found himself drawn to Buddhism. He was educated at Malvern College, where he first became a theosophist, and at Trinity Hall, Cambridge.
Buddhism and Theosophy
In the early decades of the twentieth century, Humphreys had begun a broad reading in the available English-language literature on Eastern thought and Buddhism in particular. He was further influenced in this direction by public lectures presented by J.R. Pain (founder of the short-lived Buddhist Society of England) Charles Henry Allan Bennett (aka Ananda Metteya), and Francis Payne.[1] In 1924, Humphreys founded the London Buddhist Lodge (later the Buddhist Society).[1] The impetus came from several theosophists with whom Humphreys corresponded, chief among them being Annie Besant (President of the Theosophical Society, 1907–1933) and George S. Arundale (President, 1933–1947). Both at his home and at the lodge he played host to a variety of spiritual authorities and writers including Nicholas Roerich, Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan, Alice Bailey and D. T. Suzuki. Other regular visitors in the 1930s were the Russian singer Vladimir Rosing and the philosopher Alan Watts.[3] In 1931 Humphreys met the spiritual teacher Meher Baba.[4]
The Buddhist Society is one of the oldest Buddhist organisations outside Asia with Western founders.[citation needed]
In the same year, Humphreys received the news of the death of one of his mentors, George Arundale. He later assembled and collated some of Arundale's unpublished works, a collection of which he left to the Theosophical Society on his death in 1983.[citation needed]
Legal career
Humphreys was called to the bar by the Inner Temple in 1924. When first qualified, he tended to take criminal defence work, making use of his skills in cross-examination. In 1934, he was appointed Junior Treasury Counsel at the Central Criminal Court ("the Old Bailey").[citation needed]
At the 1950 trial of the nuclear spy Klaus Fuchs, Humphreys was the prosecuting counsel for the Attorney General.[8] In 1955, he was made a Bencher of his Inn and the next year became Recorder of Guildford.[citation needed]
In 1962 Humphreys became a Commissioner at the Old Bailey. He was appointed an Additional Judge there in 1968 and served on the bench until his retirement in 1976. Increasingly he became willing to court controversy with his judicial pronouncements. In 1975, he passed a six-month suspended jail sentence on an 18-year-old man convicted of raping two women at knife-point. The leniency of the sentence created a public outcry. His sentence of a man to eighteen months in jail for a fraud shortly afterwards added to the controversy.[9]
Humphreys was a prolific author of books on the Buddhist tradition. He was also president of the Shakespeare Fellowship, a position to which he was elected in 1955. The Fellowship advanced the theory that the plays generally attributed to Shakespeare were in fact the work of Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford. Under Humphreys the fellowship changed its name to the Shakespeare Authorship Society. He helped found the Ballet Guild in 1941 and acted as its chairman.[10]
Humphreys published his autobiography Both Sides of the Circle in 1978. He also wrote poetry, especially verses inspired by his Buddhist beliefs, one of which posed the question: When I die, who dies?
Buddhism in Britain by Ian P. Oliver, (1979) London: Rider & Company, ISBN0-091-3816-06
Diamond Sutra and the Sutra of Hui-neng (Shambhala Classics) by W. Y. Evans-Wentz (foreword), Christmas Humphreys (foreword), Wong Mou-Lam (translator), A F Price (translator)
Essays In Zen Buddhism (Third Series) by D. T. Suzuki
^ abcdeDaw, Muriel (February 2016). "Christmas Humphreys 1901-1983 A Pioneer of Buddhism in the West". The Middle Way. 89 (4). Buddhist Society: 279–286. ISSN0026-3214.
