James Avon Clyde, Lord Clyde

James Avon Clyde, Lord Clyde (1863 – 1944) was a Scottish politician and judge.

Clyde was called to the Scots Bar in 1889, becoming a KC in 1901. He was later Dean of the Faculty of Advocates from 1915-1918.

He held office briefly as Solicitor General for Scotland in late 1905.

He was the unsuccessful Tory candidate for Clackmannanshire and Kinross-shire in 1906. He sat as Liberal Unionist Member of Parliament for Edinburgh West from 1909 to 1918 and Coalition Unionist member for Edinburgh North from 1918-1920.

He was appointed a Privy Counsellor in 1916. He was also appointed to the Dardanelles Commission. He served as Lord Advocate from 1916 to 1920 in the Coalition Government. He was appointed to the bench and served as Lord Justice General and Lord President of the Court of Session from 1920 to 1935, with the judicial title Lord Clyde. During this time Lord Clyde gave this famous quote (amongst taxation circles) in the case of Ayrshire Pullman Motor Services v Inland Revenue [1929] 14 Tax Case 754, at 763,764:

"No man in the country is under the smallest obligation, moral or other, so to arrange his legal relations to his business or property as to enable the Inland Revenue to put the largest possible shovel in his stores. The Inland Revenue is not slow, and quite rightly, to take every advantage which is open to it under the Taxing Statutes for the purposes of depleting the taxpayer's pocket. And the taxpayer is in like manner entitled to be astute to prevent, so far as he honestly can, the depletion of his means by the Inland Revenue"

He was Lord Lieutenant of Kinross-shire, and Chairman of the Trustees of the National Library of Scotland from 1936.

His eldest son James Latham Clyde, Lord Clyde later also became Lord Advocate and Lord Justice General.