Richard Geraint Rees
Richard Geraint Rees (5 May 1907 – 27 March 1986) was a British judge and army officer. He was born in Aberystwyth, Wales, the eldest of four children of Rev. Richard Jenkyn Rees and Apphia Mary James; his brother was journalist Goronwy Rees. He studied at Cardiff High School, University College Wales, Aberystwyth, and St John's College, Cambridge, earning an LLB with first-class honours and winning the Samuel Evans Prize. He began practicing law in 1934.
In 1939 he joined the Welsh Guards and rose to lieutenant colonel in the 21st Army Group. During World War II he served as deputy assistant adjutant general in the London District (1943–44) and as assistant director of the Army Welfare Services in Paris (1943–45), helping to organise British welfare services there. He was mentioned in dispatches in 1946 and received the Bronze Star Medal from the U.S. Army in 1947 for his work in Paris.
After the war, Rees continued his legal career on the South Wales circuit (1934–39) and later in London and the Wales and Chester circuit (1946–56). He served as a metropolitan stipendiary magistrate from 1956 to 1971, then was sworn in as a circuit judge in 1971, later becoming deputy chairman of Inner London Sessions and a permanent judge at the Central Criminal Court until 1981.
He married Mary Davies in 1938; they had one son. He remarried in 1950 to Margaret Green, widow of Robert Philip Brent Grotrian; they had a daughter. He died in Weybridge, England, in 1986 at the age of 78.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 15:16 (CET).