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Boyd Merriman, 1st Baron Merriman

Conservative Party politician and judge (1880-1962)

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
People and ideasInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionMay 23, 2026
Entity authorityQ4952367
Source-derived summary

Frank Boyd Merriman, 1st Baron Merriman, (28 April 1880 – 18 January 1962), known as Boyd Merriman, was a British Conservative politician and judge.

Education

Merriman was born in Knutsford, Cheshire, and educated at Winchester College. He did not go to university, but became an articled clerk with a firms of solicitors in Manchester, and later studied for the bar, and was a pupil in Gordon Hewart's chambers. He was called to the bar at the Inner Temple in 1904. During World War I, he served with the Manchester Regiment and was appointed OBE in 1918. After the war, Merriman was made a King's Counsel (KC) in 1919, and appointed Recorder of Wigan in 1920.

Merriman had a large practice at the common law bar and on the Northern Circuit. Prominent cases in which he appeared include the 1927 libel case Wright v Gladstone, which arose of defamatory statements concerning the private life of former prime minister William Ewart Gladstone. In 1929, he represented Zionist organisations in front of the Shaw Commission, appointed to investigate the Palestine riots.

Political and judicial career

Merriman was elected at the 1924 general election as Member of Parliament (MP) for Manchester Rusholme, and served as Solicitor General under Stanley Baldwin from 1928 to 1929 and under Ramsay MacDonald from 1932 to 1933, receiving the customary knighthood upon appointment.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Boyd Merriman, 1st Baron Merriman” as conservative Party politician and judge (1880-1962). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Boyd, Merriman and Baron.

Editorial reviewA useful biographical orientation record, particularly for establishing names, roles and a first chronology. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1880, 1962, 1904, 1918—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1880-04-28. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Boyd, Merriman and Baron providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Boyd Merriman, 1st Baron Merriman”, the useful work is to connect “conservative Party politician and judge (1880-1962)” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4952367. VIAF identifies the subject as 178531763. The Library of Congress control number is no2011127888. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1880, 1962, 1904 and 1918.

Critical limits

Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Boyd Merriman, 1st Baron Merriman”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Boyd Merriman, 1st Baron Merriman primary sources, Boyd Merriman, 1st Baron Merriman archive and Boyd research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Boyd Merriman, 1st Baron Merriman”?
  2. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
  3. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Boyd Merriman, 1st Baron Merriman” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.