Michael Mortimer Wheeler
British lawyer (1915–1992)
Michael Mortimer Wheeler (8 January 1915 – 7 August 1992) was a British barrister.
Early life and education
The son of archaeologists Mortimer and Tessa Wheeler, he attended the Dragon School and Rugby School before going on to study law at Christ Church, Oxford.
Legal career and military service
Wheeler first worked at a solicitor's office, and was called to the Bar in 1938 from Gray's Inn, being also admitted ad eundem to Lincoln's Inn on 13 March 1946. Having joined the Territorial Army, during the Second World War he served in the Royal Artillery regiment (the 48th Light Anti-Aircraft Battery, later combined with the 69th and 79th LAA Batteries to form the 21st Light Anti-Aircraft Regiment for service overseas) formed and commanded by his father, who unconventionally commissioned him as a second lieutenant, this appointment subsequently confirmed by the War Office. By the end of the war he had risen to the rank of lieutenant colonel and was mentioned in dispatches. After the war he returned to practising law. He was appointed Queen's Counsel in 1961, elected a Bencher of Lincoln's Inn in 1967, and Treasurer in 1986. He also served as a deputy High Court judge for fifteen years, before his retirement in 1986.
One of Wheeler's pupils at the Bar was the Yorkshire cricketer Geoffrey Keighley; his fees were paid – in light of Wheeler's ambition that the Bar should beat the Barristers' Clerks at the annual cricket match held at the Oval – in a course of lessons under the test cricketer Alf Gover.
Personal life
Wheeler married Sheila Mayou, an orthoptist, in 1939.
The public source identifies “Michael Mortimer Wheeler” as british lawyer (1915–1992). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Michael, Mortimer and Wheeler.
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The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 30, 2023. The linked authority identifier is Q44200229. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1915, 1992, 1938 and 1946.
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This entry incorporates text from “Michael Mortimer Wheeler” 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.