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Claude Horace Weston (28 December 1879 – 10 November 1946) was a New Zealand lawyer, a lieutenant-colonel in WWI, and effectively the first president of the National Party (1936–1940). ==Early life== Weston was born in Hokitika in 1879.〔(【引用サイトリンク】url= http://patria.homestead.com/patriadsoweston.html )〕 His parents were Maria Cracroft Weston (née Hill) and Thomas S. Weston, and judge and later a member of the House of Representatives for electorates on the West Coast of the South Island. Claude Weston received his secondary education at Christ's College and graduated with LL.B. from the Canterbury University College. Weston was a Captain of the Taranaki Rifles. Together with his elder brother Thomas Shailer Weston, Jr., he took over his father's legal practice in November 1902, with offices in New Plymouth, Inglewood, and Waitara. Their firm was known as Weston & Weston. He was appointed crown prosecutor in 1915. In the same year, he joined the Wellington Infantry Battalion and embarked on 14 August for Suez in Egypt.〔(【引用サイトリンク】url= http://muse.aucklandmuseum.com/databases/cenotaph/58281.detail )〕 He became a lieutenant-colonel and was awarded a Distinguished Service Order in the 1918 New Year Honours. The citation reads:〔 He was severely wounded in the war and was eventually discharged as unfit for further service. He wrote a book about his war time experiences, ''Three Years with the New Zealanders'', which was published in 1918. He returned to New Plymouth, where he resumed law practice, but also engaged in farming. He was commandant of the New Zealand command of the Legion of Frontiersmen from 1926 to 1933,〔(【引用サイトリンク】url= http://frontiersmen.homestead.com/commandant.html )〕 and was chairman of the New Plymouth repatriation committee.〔 He resigned as crown solicitor in New Plymouth in 1931 before he moved to Auckland. At the end of 1933 he moved to Wellington. Weston was sworn in as King's Counsel on 12 March 1934 at the Wellington Supreme Court. Others who took silk at the same ceremony were Alexander Howat Johnstone and John Callan. Michael Myers as Chief Justice presided, four other judges sat on the bench, and the Speaker of the House of Representatives (Charles Statham) and the Minister of Justice (John Cobbe) attended in official capacity. In 2013, the Crown Law Office published a list of King's and Queen's Counsel appointed since 1907, but Weston is missing from that list,〔(【引用サイトリンク】url= http://www.crownlaw.govt.nz/uploads/qc_since_1907.pdf )〕 and according to the Law Society, he is the only omission on the official list.〔(【引用サイトリンク】url= http://my.lawsociety.org.nz/news/crown-law-lists-queens-counsel-appointments-since-1907 )〕 By coincidence, a Claude Weston from Sydney, New South Wales was appointed King's Counsel just a month earlier. Whilst they were not related, they later met. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Claude Weston」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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