Francis Patrick Neill, Baron Neill of Bladen, (8 August 1926 – 28 May 2016) was a British barrister and a crossbench member of the House of Lords.
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Early life and education
A son of Sir Thomas Neill, Patrick Neill was born in Hampstead in 1926. He was educated at Highgate School and Magdalen College, Oxford. From 1944 to 1947, he served in the Rifle Brigade and became a captain.
Legal career
He became a barrister in 1951 and took silk in 1966. After heading One Hare Court, he became head of chambers of Serle Court in Lincoln's Inn when the two merged in 1999. He worked alongside Henry Fisher, Roger Parker, Gordon Slynn, and Richard Southwell QC. Lord Neill left Serle Court in 2008 to join his elder brother Sir Brian Neill, a former Court of Appeal judge, at 20 Essex Street.
University of Oxford
He was Warden of All Souls College, Oxford, from 1977 until 1995, and appointed an Honorary Fellow in 1995. He was Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University from 1985 until 1989, and played a major part in the University's decision to undertake The Campaign for Oxford. He was an unsuccessful candidate in the 2003 University of Oxford Chancellor election.
Family life
Neill was the younger brother of the paediatrician Catherine Neill (1921–2006) and of the judge Sir Brian Neill (1923–2017). In 1954 he married Caroline Susan Debenham (died 2010), daughter of Sir Piers Kenrick Debenham. They had six children.
Neill owned homes in London, in Perthshire, and in Briantspuddle, Dorset. He died from a heart attack at home in Briantspuddle on 28 May 2016, at the age of 89.
Honours
Having been knighted in 1983, Neill was made a Life Peer as Baron Neill of Bladen, of Briantspuddle in the County of Dorset, on 28 November 1997. He sat in the House of Lords as a crossbencher until 18 May 2016, ten days before his death, at which point he ceased to be a member pursuant to section 2 of the House of Lords Reform Act 2014, having failed to attend during the whole of the 2015–16 session without being on leave of absence.