Lord Brightman

John Anson Brightman, Baron Brightman, PC (20 June 1911 – 6 February 2006) was a British barrister and judge who served as a law lord between 1982 and 1986.

Brightman was born in Sandridge, Hertfordshire, the son of William Henry Brightman, a solicitor, and of Minnie Boston Brightman, née Way. He was educated at Doon House School in Kent, Marlborough College, and St John's College, Cambridge, where he read Law. He was called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn in 1932. He then joined the chambers of Fergus Morton, later a law lord, and practiced at the Chancery bar.

During World War II, he volunteered as an able seaman in the Merchant Navy from 1939 to 1940, then was commissioned into the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, serving on convoy in the Atlantic and the Mediterranean. In 1944, he attended the Royal Naval staff course at Greenwich, and was promoted to lieutenant commander to become assistant naval attaché in Ankara. He returned to the bar in 1946, mainly practising trusts and taxation law, and took silk in 1961. He was appointed Attorney General of the Duchy of Lancaster, but relinquished the post on his appointment to the bench in 1970.

While at the bar, Brightman was pupil master to Margaret Thatcher, who was his first female pupil.

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