Sir Robert Hugh Le Masurier (29 December 1913 – 30 July 1996) was Bailiff of Jersey from 1962 to 1974.
Le Masurier went to school at Victoria College in Jersey. He graduated from Pembroke College, Oxford.[1]
He served in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve 1939-1944.[2] He won the DSC for defusing a mine in the North Sea.[3]
Le Masurier was appointed Solicitor General in Jersey in 1955, following the unexpected resignation from that office of Ralph Vibert (who had been 'required to resign by the Attorney General').[4]
He was appointed Attorney General in 1958.[5]
He was appointed Deputy Bailiff in 1962, but served 'barely six months' due to the death of the Bailiff.[6] He went on to served as Bailiff of Jersey, 1962-74. He told a journalist in 1968, that he was a 'political capon–I have no views. I'm a chief magistrate, I preside over the States, and I act as a kind of Ombudsman too'.[7] In 1971, he sentenced Patrick Welch, a 21-year-old kitchen porter, to death for the murder of a 17-year-old girl on holiday in Jersey from Essex.[8] He was personally opposed to the death penality.[9] As Bailiff, he oversaw Jersey's talks with the UK Government over its accession to the EEC, 'though he played little part in the substantive negotiations'.[10] He retired from office early, to enjoy his hobbies of sailing and carpentry.[11]
He was knighted in the 1966 Birthday Honours.