Cedric Hampson Eulogy

Cedric Edward Keid Hampson was born in Ashgrove on 18 January 1933 and passed away in the embrace of his family at his beloved home in Ascot last Saturday, aged 81.

It is not the length of life that matters, but the depth. By any measure, Cedric Hampson lived a deep life.

Cedric’s early life

Cedric was the eldest of three children, with brother Lester and sister Rhonda who are present here today.

During his primary schooling at St Finbarr’s School, Ashgrove he was identified as a child of unusual ability. In his unfinished memoirs [to which I have been granted privileged access] Cedric recalls that in a two year period in grades 1 and 2, he read every book in the school library.

From grade four, he was educated at St Joseph’s Gregory Terrace usually being dux of his class but never less than third. He maintained a lifelong interest in supporting his old school.

Cedric took degrees in Arts and Laws at the University of Queensland where he was President of the student body and represented the university in debating and rugby. Based upon his academic brilliance and sporting prowess, Cedric was selected in 1955 as a Rhodes Scholar and undertook his Bachelor in Civil Laws at Magdalen College, Oxford, where he rowed and continued to play representative rugby.

At dinner at college after an expansive day enjoying the rugby Cedric became concerned that one side of his face was very hot and flushed, only to come to the realization that his head had fallen into the soup.

Marriage and family life

Whilst at Oxford he went on a skiing trip to Austria with a couple of mates where he met and immediately fell in love with the beautiful Catharina Brans Kremers from Amsterdam. After five days he proposed. As Catharina was the apple of her father’s eye, letters were dispatched post haste to the Archbishop in Brisbane and to the Principal at Gregory Terrace inquiring after the credentials of this wild bearded man from Australia. Apparently the response was positive as, six months later, they married with the blessing of Catharina’s family.

Cedric brought his young bride back to Australia to share the privations of a frugal existence in an abode in Auchenflower where their first bed was made from an old door as Cedric worked hard to establish his career at the Queensland Bar.

This loving union produced four very accomplished children, and 10 handsome grandchildren — Oscar, Hugo, Sophie, Casper, Harry, Greta, Eddie, Ava, Jonno and Violette.

While raising her family, Catharina managed to establish herself as a celebrated sculptor and artist, with one of her works gracing the foyer of the Inns of Court. It is surely not entirely coincidental that the depicted passionate advocate in wig and gown pleading for the hapless family bears a striking resemblance to Cedric.

Cedric and Catharina’s elder daughter, Dr. Edith Hampson, has distinguished herself in academic circles as a veterinary scientist. Their younger daughter, Alice, is a highly respected prize winning architect. Their elder son, Leofric, is a member of the Bars of Queensland, England and Wales, and Brussels, practicing in Brussels in European Union business law. Their younger son, Edmund, a graduate of the Queensland University of Technology in building science, has established a successful business in the construction industry.

I warmly acknowledge the presence today of the partners of Edith, Alice and Edmund, namely, Peter Clark-Ryan, Anthony Morris QC and Pepita Hampson.

One of the fondest childhood memories of the children are of life with Cedric at the family macadamia nut farm at Landsborough.

Cedric and Catharina’s younger daughter Alice considers that the twilight years with Cedric were the sweetest for her; a time for sharing both the poignant and the simple moments.  Alice recalls that Cedric attended the ultrasound scan of her child Violette in utero and marvelled about how formed and perfect she was at only 18 weeks – “a person” Cedric declared. 

In those twilight years, Cedric could enjoy the simple pleasures of life like coffee from every single coffee shop in the neighbourhood; the cafes, the smaller “hole in the wall” type establishments, the businesses with a sideline in coffee, including grocery shops like Sirianis’, even service stations and a family law office at Albion. He knew the coffee from all of them, but his favourite was the coffee from the St Margaret’s tuckshop, especially if it came with a little gingerbread treat. 

In these years Cedric’s greatest pleasure came from spending time with his grandchildren. Last evening I was much moved to hear some of Cedric and Catharina’s grandchildren express the love and the deep affection they had for their Opi.

Cedric’s legal career

At the height of his legal practice, Cedric bestrode the Queensland Bar like a colossus. 

In his unfinished memoirs, Cedric recalls:

“I was going to be a Priest, a doctor or a lawyer. They were the three choices…………I think my mother wanted me to be a priest.”

Cedric was called to the Bar in 1957 and the Senior Bar in 1971.

He was President of the Queensland Bar Association from 1978 to 1981, and again in 1995 to 1996.

A perusal of the Commonwealth Law Reports and the Queensland Reports since the early 1960s readily demonstrates, not only the huge number of cases in which he appeared, but also the extraordinary diversity of those cases – crime, personal injuries, defamation, commercial and industrial matters, town planning cases, property disputes, and constitutional matters.

It is not only the volume and diversity of cases that is remarkable, but the range of Courts and Tribunals he appeared before.

The Privy Council in London, the High Court of Australia, the Federal Court, the Family Court, the full range of Queensland courts – the Court of Appeal, the Supreme Court, the District Courts, the Magistrates Court and various Tribunals.

Cedric was a true generalist with an amazing breath of legal knowledge and forensic skills. More broadly, he seemed to have a wealth of knowledge about any subject.

In the 70s and 80s, Cedric was regarded as the alpha male of the Queensland Bar.

Counsel regarded a junior brief to Cedric as “like going to Court with your father, nothing can go wrong.”

The rule of thumb for Bar Association deliberations for decades was “what would Cedric do in this situation”.

The Inns of Court, at the corner of North Quay and Turbot Street, stands as a testament to Cedric Hampson’s initiative, foresight and organizational skills. Cedric was Chairman of Barristers Chambers Limited from 1973 to 2006, Chairman of the Incorporated Council of Law Reporting from 1973, and Chairman of the Management Committee of the Bar Practice Centre from 1983 to 1989.

“If you seek my monument”, Sir Christopher Wren declared, “then look around you.” Cedric was not only a leader but a builder of the fabric of the Queensland Bar.

The day before Cedric’s death, the Board of Directors of Barristers Chambers Limited — knowing that Cedric’s health was failing — met, and decided that his immense contribution to the home of the Queensland Bar had not yet been adequately recognised. Although a meeting room in the building is already named in his honour — as is the group of chambers on the 17th Level where Cedric once had his room — a further and more substantial tribute was considered appropriate. Sadly, Cedric did not live to be informed by his successor as Chairman, David Tait QC, about this last of many richly-deserved accolades: the proposed renaming of the Inns of Court Bar Common Room in his honour.

My knowledge of Cedric

At the very peak of his career, when many barristers could be forgiven for relaxing into the routine of an established practice, Cedric’s work as a barrister took a new turn: he became something of a Royal Commission and Public Inquiry specialist. He liked the work. He once explained that it took him out of the constraints of court life and exposed him to people and issues that he would not meet or deal with otherwise.

I first worked with Cedric as a junior Melbourne based lawyer on the national Royal Commission into Drugs chaired by the late Justice, Sir Edward “Ned”, Williams at a time when Cedric was President of the Bar Association. Cedric was Senior Counsel Assisting. I was immediately struck by the courtesy and consideration which he showed to his instructing solicitors, his clients, and his junior barristers. In a 20 year working association, I never observed even the slightest hint of arrogance in his dealings with me or any of the other subordinate personnel. I was also to learn and experience that he was the most generous of hosts.

Sir Edward and Cedric were the perfect team. Sir Edward was full of drive, energy and enthusiasm while Cedric methodically put the Inquiry organization and structure in place. From the first day of the first hearing in a two year inquiry, Cedric was shaping the final report — with issues identified and chapter headings assigned — to be progressively modified as the evidence was received and analysed.

The resultant report on Drugs in Australia was a monumental work of five volumes with the cover designed by Cedric showing Australia breaking apart along its state jurisdictional borders.  The Inquiry recommendations led to massive changes to Australian law enforcement and to drug control, for example, the establishment of the Australian Federal Police and the creation of the Australian Bureau of Criminal Intelligence, to deal nationally, for the first time, with the threat posed by Organised Crime to the Australian community .

Cedric didn’t always have things his own way. While touring the drug production countries in Central and South America, Cedric suggested to Sir Edward that they should take up the invitation of the Mexican Attorney-General to fly over some clandestine drug crops in the mountains so that they could appreciate at firsthand what a law enforcement challenge they represented. As the helicopter crested a ridge and a drug crop in the valley came into view, the crop sitters took umbrage at being spied on by the federales. A bullet ricocheted off one of the rotor blades and the guards on board returned fire. At this point, Cedric began to wonder about the wisdom of his recommendation.

A year or two later I took up the same assisting role when Cedric was appointed to the national Royal Commission into Drug Trafficking [ known colloquially as the Mr Asia Inquiry] chaired by Justice Donald Stewart, another giant in the war against organized crime and corruption. Cedric again played the role of the éminence grise to that inquiry.  In the result, every principal member of the Mr Asia gang was brought to justice for their murderous rampage up and down the east coast of Australia and internationally. The report on the Mr Asia Syndicate led, inter alia, to the creation of the National Crime Authority [now the Australian Crime Commission] and to the establishment of the office of the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions. While we now watch with fascination the Underbelly series on television, Cedric lived the Underbelly experience.

During both the Williams and the Stewart Royal Commissions, Cedric would frequently seek the advice of his brother Lester, then a senior officer in the Bureau of Customs, about how to handle the public sector. Lester invariably came through with a way to thread the labyrinthine processes of the bureaucracy.

Cedric was involved with numerous other important public inquiries including the Fitzgerald Inquiry, the Barrier Reef Inquiry into Oil Drilling, the Northern Territory Land Tenures Inquiry, the Royal Commission into the Nugan Hand Group, etc, and several public inquiries conducted by the Criminal Justice Commission.

Cedric represented Australia at the 1988 United Nations Conference on Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances.

For his contribution to the Williams and Stewart Royal Commissions, Cedric was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia.

Cedric’s contribution beyond the law

A keen Rugby footballer in his younger days, Cedric continued his interest in sport both as a spectator and as Chairman of the Advisory Committee to the Sporting Wheelies and Disabled Sport and Recreation Association (1990-96).

A former Rhodes Scholar, he took on the presidency of the Queensland Rhodes Scholars’ Association from 1996.

Cedric was a member of the RAAF Reserve rising to the rank of Wing Commander, was appointed as a Judge Advocate, and as Honorary ADC to the Queen from 1976 to 1978.

The business world has also benefited from Cedric’s wisdom and commercial insight, as a director of two listed public companies – Consolidated Rutile Ltd and Cudgen RZ Ltd.

Cedric was very active in the affairs of the Catholic Church.

In 1987 he became the first Head of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem as Queensland Lieutenant and Knight Commander. He was also a Knight of the Order of St Lazarus of Jerusalem.

On behalf of Catharina and the Hampson family, I acknowledge with gratitude the presence of numerous members of the Equestrian Order.

In 2012, Pope Benedict XVI awarded Cedric a Knighthood of the Order of St Gregory the Great.

The Private Cedric

Cedric was a true renaissance man.

Cedric has published six works – Shifting Shadows, Cat’s Eye, Truth in Masquerade, Occasions of Sin, Sicilian Vespers, Betty’s Oxford Short Story and Other Tales, and the Brothers Keid.

Cedric was an accomplished painter of landscapes, portraits and religious scenes.

Cedric was a classical scholar without peer in his generation, and had an encyclopedic knowledge of, and appreciation for, classical music.

Like his father Cecil before him, Cedric was interested in bird breeding and kept an aviary at Ascot housing finches and quails.

A communication from His Excellency, the Governor of Queensland

The Chief Executive of the Bar Association, Robyn Martin circulated the following communication yesterday from His Excellency The Honourable Paul de Jersey AC, Governor of Queensland:

“As a Life Member of the Association, and for all reasons, the Governor wishes members to know that he deeply regrets his inability to attend the Requiem Mass for our late colleague Cedric Hampson QC. The reason is the Governor is to preside at that time at a meeting of the Executive Council. The Governor respectfully acknowledges the immense contribution of our late colleague to the law and the administration of the law within our State, and conveys his and Kaye’s deepest sympathies to the family.”

To Cedric’s Family

To Cedric’s siblings, immediate family, and extended family, may I observe that the presence of such a large cross section of the Brisbane, Queensland and Australian communities at this service does great honour the memory of your brother, husband, father, father-in-law and grandfather.

Cedric will be a significant figure in the history of Queensland for many generations to come.

Our thoughts, prayers and condolences are with you today and always.

Farewell

Farewell Cedric,

You have fought the good fight, you have finished the race, you have kept the faith.

Mark Le Grand