Richard ian Trelfall, M.A., Q.C.

Ian Threlfall was born on 14 January 1920 in Edgbaston and educated at Oundle and Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, where he read law. He was already seriously interested in archaeology when he went up to Cambridge in 1938 and had dug at the medieval site at Bere, in Devon, with Martyn Jope and had accompanied Max Mallowan and Agatha Christie to excavate a site on the River Brak in South Africa. Had the war not intervened it is possible that he would have chosen a career in archaeology rather than law but, by the time he was elected to the fellowship in 1949, his excavating days were virtually over. He enlisted in the army in 1940, serving with the Indian Armoured Corps (Proby's Horse). He took part in the battle of Imphal, was twice mentioned in despatches and ended the war as lieutenant-colonel at the age of twenty-five, on the staff of Field Marshal William Slim. In 1946 he returned to this country and again joined Martyn Jope, this time to excavate the twelfth-century castle at Ascot Doilly, Oxfordshire, helped by Dr Eric Gee and Margaret Jope. The report, jointly by Jope and Threlfall, was included in Antiquaries Journal xxxix (ii). Threlfall returned to Cambridge to complete his degree and was called to the Bar by Lincoln's Inn in 1947, took silk in 1965 and was made Master of the Bench of Lincoln's Inn in 1973. Threlfall specialized in the then professionally under-represented field of competition law - the application of legal and economic principles to the determination of the public interest in matters of monopoly and anti-competitive conduct - leading a remarkably successful group of chambers in Gray's Inn and earning a formidable reputation for himself as a brilliant draftsman and advocate. Alongside his work at the Bar, Threlfall dedicated himself to the affairs of the Goldsmiths' Company, his interest kindled by his marriage in 1948 to a member of the Matthey family. He was closely involved in the Company's educational and charitable activities and was Prime Warden in 1978-9, but his main work, from 1974-91, was as chairman of the assay office committee, ensuring the highest standards in the use and description of precious metals. He died on 6 January 1997.