Sir Derek Oulton, British civil servant, Died at 89

  Law

Sir Antony Derek Maxwell Oulton was born on October 14, 1927, and died on August 1, 2016.

He was a British senior civil servant.

Oulton was the Permanent Secretary of the Lord Chancellor’s Department and Clerk of the Crown in Chancery, United Kingdom from 1982–1989.

Derek was educated at St Edward’s School, Oxford and then read law at King’s College, Cambridge, where he took a double first.

Sir Derek Oulton was called to the bar at Gray’s Inn (where he was later a Bencher), and was in private practice as a barrister in Nairobi until 1960, when he joined the Lord Chancellor’s Department.

Derek Oulton was Private Secretary to three successive Lord Chancellors, the Earl Kilmuir, the Viscount Dilhorne, and Lord Gardiner, and also served as Secretary to the Beeching Royal Commission on Assizes and Quarter Sessions, 1966–69.

His final civil service position was as Permanent Secretary of the Lord Chancellor’s Department and Clerk of the Crown in Chancery 1982–89.

Sir Derek Oulton was awarded a University of Cambridge PhD on the basis of a jointly-authored practitioner text on legal aid and advice, and after retiring from the civil service entered academia, becoming a Research Fellow of Magdalene College, Cambridge in 1990.

Subsequently, he became a Life Fellow and, until his retirement in June 2007.

He has received a standing ovation from the College Law Society following his retirement at the Annual Lawyers’ Dinner in 2007.

Now, there is a bench that sits beside the River Cam in the grounds of the College in his honour.

Oulton addressed the Cambridge University Gray’s Inn Association, on May 8, 2008, giving a talk entitled “A Life in the Law”.

Sir Derek Oulton passed away at 89 years old.