Laura Knight 1877-1970
Sir Geoffrey Lawrence, the primary British judge at the Trial of Major War Criminals, was praised for ‘his patience, clarity and balanced moral perspective’ (Barbara C. Morden, Laura Knight: A Life, p. 231) throughout the proceedings. Following Laura Knight’s commandeering of the American press booth, he joked with her that she had distinguished herself ‘by becoming an international situation at Nuremberg’. Beyond the courtroom, he and his wife generously hosted dinner parties and lunches for both colleagues and visitors. Prior to one such lunch, Knight executed her drawing of him, completing it in a morning; afterwards, at lunch, she recalled: ‘He talked a lot about the court, and told me how he too had never been able to get over the horror of passing sentence for hanging’ (Laura Knight, The Magic of a Line: The Autobiography of Laura Knight, 1965).