Ivor Jennings

Sir William Ivor Jennings, KBE, QC, FBA (Sinhala: ශ්‍රීමත් අයිවර් ජෙන්නින්ග්ස්) (16 May 1903 – 19 December 1965) was a British lawyer and academic. He was a prominent educator who served as the Vice Chancellor of University of Cambridge (1961–63) and University of Ceylon (1942–55).

Sir William Ivor Jennings KBE, QC, FBA
Vice Chancellor of University of Ceylon
In office 1942–1954
Preceded by	None
Succeeded by	Sir Nicholas Attygalle
Personal details
Born	(1903-05-16)16 May 1903 Bristol, England
Died	19 December 1965(1965-12-19) (aged 62) Cambridge, England
Profession	Lawyer, academic

Education

Sir Ivor was educated at Queen Elizabeth's Hospital, Bristol (a boarding school), at Bristol Grammar School, and at St Catharine's College, Cambridge.

Career

Jennings joined the University of Leeds as a Lecturer in Law in 1925 and became a Holt Scholar of Gray's Inn and was called to the bar in 1928. The following year he joined the London School of Economics as Lecturer in Law.

Jennings was sent to Ceylon by the British Government in 1942, as the Principal of the University College, Colombo with a mandate to create a university for that land, then a Crown colony.[1] The institution, on the model of University of London, was dubbed the University of Ceylon and was first established in Colombo, the capital city, then partially transferred in 1952 to a purpose-built campus in Peradeniya.[2] During World War II he served as the Deputy Civil Defense Commissioner.[3]

He was knighted in 1948, made a Queen's Counsel in 1949, and awarded the KBE in 1955. In 1955, Jennings received an honorary doctorate by vote of the senate of the University of Ceylon to recognize his work in creating and building the institution. A hall of residence at the University of Peradeniya is named in his honour.

In the same year (1955) he returned to Britain to take up the post of Master of Trinity Hall, Cambridge. He subsequently served a term as Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, a position which at that time rotated among the heads of the colleges.

Jennings married Helen Emily Konsalik in 1928 and had two daughters, Shirley (Jennings) Watson and Claire (Jennings) Dewing. Together with his wife and daughter Claire, he was aboard the MS Lakonia, a Greek-owned cruise ship, when it caught fire and sank north of Madeira on 22 December 1963, with the loss of 128 lives.

Constitutional law

Jennings was an authority on constitutional law and is author of a definitive book on the workings of the then British constitution. He advised D. S. Senanayake in drafting the Constitution of Ceylon to form the Dominion of Ceylon.[4]

He was proposed by Indian nationalist leader Jawaharlal Nehru to be the chairman of the drafting committee of the Constitution of India; however, eventually Mahatma Gandhi's candidate, B. R. Ambedkar, was chosen.[5]

He was a member of the Reid Commission from June 1956 to 1957, which was responsible for drafting the Constitution of the Federation of Malaya (now Malaysia).

Partial bibliography

• The Road to Peradeniya
• Constitutional Laws of the British Empire (1938), later reissued as Constitutional Laws of the Commonwealth (1957)
• Parliament (1939)
• A Federation for Western Europe (1940)
• Party Politics (1955)
• The Law and the Constitution (5th Edition) (1959)
• Principles of Local Government Law (4th Edition) (1960)
• The British Commonwealth of Nations (4th Revised Edition) (1963)
• Cabinet Government (3rd Edition) (1965)
• The British Constitution (5th Edition) (1966)

See also

• University of Ceylon
• List of Vice-Chancellors of the University of Cambridge

References

1. "Ivor Jennings saga in Ceylon during World War II". LankaLibrary. 2005. Retrieved 10 June 2010.
2. "Sir Ivor: First Vice Chancellor of University of Ceylon". Rootsweb. 2003. Retrieved 10 June 2010.
3. First Vice Chancellor of University of Ceylon
4. "Sir Ivor Jennings: The multifaceted educationist". Archived from the original on 5 April 2008. Retrieved 4 June 2013.
5. Bidyut Chakrabarty (2018), The Socio-political Ideas of BR Ambedkar: Liberal constitutionalism in a creative mould, Taylor & Francis, pp. 446–, ISBN 978-1-351-12442-3

External links

• Sir Ivor: First Vice Chancellor of University of Ceylon
• Archives of Sir Ivor Jennings

Academic offices
Preceded by None	Vice Chancellor of the University of Ceylon 1942–1945	Succeeded by Sir Nicholas Attygalle
Preceded by Henry Roy Dean	Master of Trinity Hall, Cambridge 1955–1965	Succeeded by William Alexander Deer
Preceded by Herbert Butterfield	Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge 1961–1963	Succeeded by John Sandwith Boys Smith