Robert Strother Stewart
Robert Strother Stewart (16 May 1878 – 15 November 1954) was an English lawyer, colonial judge and Liberal politician. The son of a Presbyterian minister from Newcastle upon Tyne, he was educated privately and at Durham University (Hatfield and Armstrong colleges), earning MA, B.Litt and Bachelor of Civil Law. He was a Gladstone Prizeman and President of the Union, and studied theology at Westminster College, Cambridge. In 1913 he married Ida Lillie Taylor and they had two sons.
Stewart began as a solicitor in 1905, later qualifying as a barrister and being called to the Bar at the Inner Temple in 1919, practising on the North-Eastern Circuit. In 1945 he became a chairman of the Pensions Appeal Tribunals under the Pensions Tribunals Act 1943.
From the mid-1920s Stewart held several colonial legal posts. He was a magistrate, Judge of the Petty Civil Court and Coroner of the County of Victoria in Trinidad (1927–1929). He served as Assistant Legal Adviser at the Colonial Office (1929–1930) and as Legal Adviser to the Governor of Malta (1930–1933), briefly acting as Deputy Governor of Malta in 1932. He was a member of Malta’s Nominated and Privy Councils and Examiner in English Literature and History at the University of Malta. In 1933 he was appointed Puisne Judge of the Supreme Court of the Gold Coast Colony, serving until 1942; he also sat on the West African Court of Appeal and acted as Chief Justice of the Gold Coast on several occasions.
Militarily, Stewart held commissions in the Tynemouth Royal Garrison Artillery in 1913, served as Assistant to the Competent Military Authority at Tyne Garrison (1919–1920), and reached the rank of Major in the Royal Artillery Reserve (1921–1928).
Locally he was active in Newcastle politics, serving on the Newcastle Board of Guardians (1909–1912) and the City Council (1912–1924), including the Education Committee.
In national politics, Stewart stood as a Liberal candidate in Workington in 1918, where he accepted the Coalition Coupon but repudiated it. He did not win. He then stood in Stockton-on-Tees in 1922 and 1923; in 1923 he narrowly defeated future Prime Minister Harold Macmillan in a three-way race, but Macmillan won the seat in 1924 as the Liberals declined. Stewart did not stand again.
His recreations included music, acting and stamp collecting, and he was a director of Newcastle United Football Club from 1915 to 1927. He died at his home in Newcastle upon Tyne on 15 November 1954, aged 76.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 19:23 (CET).