An uncommon attorney

The autobiographies of solicitors are rarely best sellers. One thinks of those pedestrian annals of the great and good who have climbed the greasy pole of Law Society office. Their shelf life is mainly confined to the society’s own library. Of course there are problems of confidentiality. The client’s juiciest adventures may have to remain suppressed.

So it is not surprising that few solicitors have managed to transmute their professional lives into something of lasting literary value. One of these, F E Mostyn, published Lawyer Heal Thyself in 1959 under the pseudonym of Bill Mortlock. It is a sensitive account of his largely matrimonial practice, in which he bravely reveals the paradox that while advising others on solving their problems, he is failing to cope with the strains in his own marriage.

Other solicitor authors have been much less inclined to bare their souls—leaving their secrets to be brought to light posthumously. Reginald Hine is an example. Perhaps the most gifted of them all, he is the subject of a recent biography by Richard Whitmore, The Ghosts of Reginald Hine (Mattingley Press, 2007). It tells us a great deal that was hidden in Hine’s lifetime.
Hine was born in 1883. His Confessions of an Uncommon Attorney was a best seller when it was published in 1945 and it remains highly readable. He paints a wonderful picture of the market town of Hitchin in Hertfordshire where he was brought up. He practised law there until his death in 1949.
He had the good fortune to be articled in the firm of Hawkins, reputed to be the oldest in England.

The clients of the firm were a cross-section of the whole community. Its deed boxes and cellars were a treasure trove of local history, dominated by the estates of families who had been settled in the neighbourhood since the reign of Henry VIII. Hine developed a passion for historical research, indulged by his senior partner William Onslow Times, who seems to have become a father figure to the younger man.

Hine had a gift for the telling phrase and the amusing anecdote. His book records a period and an environment in which the family solicitor was a major force in public affairs in rural England. Hine’s exceptionally dedicated absorption in his community also produced an exhaustive history of Hitchin in two densely packed volumes, widely recognised as a model of its kind; an account of Charles Lamb’s connections in Hertfordshire; and several lesser works about aspects of the region. Nor was he in any way reclusive or retiring. He had a strong outgoing personality, was a keen sportsman, and was an eager participant in the social life of the town.

His marriage to the daughter of a wealthy shipowning family enabled him to live in some style. How did he find the time in the midst of his vast literary endeavours to keep on top of his professional responsibilities? The sad fact, revealed by Richard Whitmore, is that he did not. Surprisingly, the man who personified the wise and skilful lawyer—not just in Hitchin but wherever his book was read—failed to pass his professional examinations until he was 50. Though he became an articled clerk when he was 18, he remained in the firm for the next 30 years without qualifying. Until 1933—though he claimed otherwise on his passport and elsewhere—he was not a solicitor but a solicitor’s clerk.

When he at last crossed the professional threshold he might have expected a partnership in the firm in which he had been so prominent for so long. The partners turned him down. His mentor, Onslow Times, had retired and in a harsher economic climate, literary fame was an inadequate substitute for fee-earning services to clients. He felt the humiliation keenly and left. Another local solicitor, Reginald Hartley, offered him a partnership. For the remaining 16 years of his life he practised with the firm of Hartley and Hine.

Things began to go badly after he joined Hartley. Hine was a celebrity, widely recognised as an eminent historian, a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and of the Royal Historical Society. He had not put the same effort into his legal career. He made little attempt to conceal his boredom with routine and became unwilling to devote time to his clients. Yet at the same time he energetically pursued “practice development”. He greatly upset his colleagues in the town when he tried to poach their clients. At the time this was a disciplinary offence. The scandal of a report to the Law Society was only averted when Hine agreed to sign a solemn undertaking to his colleagues to comply strictly with professional ethics.

He failed to keep his promise. With breathtaking recklessness he wrote directly to the spouse of a divorce client suggesting that she should meet him with her husband in an effort to discuss how the marriage could be saved. Hine’s motives may have been entirely benevolent but the wife’s solicitors were outraged and they complained to the Law Society.
On 14 April 1949 Hine went to Hitchin railway station to catch the train to King’s Cross. He had a return ticket. He spoke to acquaintances on the platform who later reported that he appeared to be normally cheerful. As a train approached the platform he suddenly threw himself on to the track in front of it. He died almost instantaneously.

Hine had already addressed a letter to the coroner which was not made public and which has now been lost. The Law Society records of the complaint do not survive but it is likely that he had an appointment on that day to answer a disciplinary charge. He must have decided to commit suicide rather than face the inevitable humiliation. His doctor gave evidence at the inquest that he had long been treating him for depression.  
Hine had revealed part of the story in Confessions of an Uncommon Attorney. “Clearly the strain of leading a double life, the accumulation of office worries, and the burden of clients’ woes had worn me down,” he says.
As he became more immersed in his research, Hine’s commitment to legal
practice waned. Yet he chose not to give it up. It is too late to fathom the full explanation. We are fortunate that he left a literary legacy of permanent value.