Constituency : Hartlepool 1922-24, Preston 1929, 1929-31 , Ashton-under-Lyne 1939-45 ( Labour* )
William recaptured Hartlepool which had been won by the Tories in 1918 despite the Liberal candidate holding the coupon. He won by 567 votes.
William was a rector's son from Stevenage. He was educated at Northaw Place, where he first met Clement Attlee, and Oxford. He became a barrister. He was quiet and suave rather than aggressive in manner. He was a Quaker.
William was on the radical wing of the party but not a great speaker.
In 1923 William managed to hold his seat by 145 votes despite Labour's intervention. He voted with Labour on the Campbell case. He was defeated in 1924.
William switched to Preston, a two-member seat where an old-fashioned Liberal-Labour partnership still operated. He regained second place behind Labour's Tom Shaw in 1929.
William was then offered the post of Attorney-General by Ramsay McDonald who was short of lawyers. He agreed to join Labour and caused a by-election to ratify his change of allegiance although it should be noted that the Liberals did not run a candidate against him. He was knighted on taking the job. He oversaw the reversal of the Trade Disputes and Trade Unions Act of 1927.
William followed McDonald into the National Government believing the welfare cuts were necessary. He was expelled from the Labour Party. The Preston Tories would not stand down for him in 1931 so he went to the Combined English Universities seat standing as National Labour. He came third. He was forced to step down as Attorney-General in 1932.
When McDonald stepped down in 1935, William started campaigning for Labour and was eventually re-admitted in 1936. He opposed appeasement and called for the re-creation of the Ministry of Munitions to fight facism. He was elected unopposed at a by-election in Ashton-under-Lyne in 1939.
Churchill appointed him Solicitor-General in 1940.He joined the Cabinet in sinecure posts. in 1944 he became Minister for National Insurance.
William was re-elected in 1945 but immediately created Baron Jowitt and elevated to Lord Chancellor by Attlee. He helped arrange the Nuremburg trials and signed up to the United Nations. He was upgraded to a viscount in 1947. He took over as Labour's leader in the Lords when Addison died in 1951 and was upgraded to an earl. He spoke out against abuses in suppressing the Mau Mau Rebellion in Kenya in 1955, shortly before retiring.
William published two books on espionage and was working on a legal dictionary when he died in 1957 aged 72.
* briefly National Labour in 1931
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