page_title: Maxwell Hendry Maxwell-Anderson
section_title: World War I and the Prize Court
hierarchical_section_title: Maxwell Hendry Maxwell-Anderson / Biography / World War I and the Prize Court
context_page_description: Captain Sir Maxwell Hendry Maxwell-Anderson CBE, KC, RN was a British naval officer, barrister and judge who was Chief Justice of Fiji and Judicial Commissioner for the Western Pacific.
context_section_description: On the outbreak of war Anderson was attached to HMS President for "Special Service at the Admiralty". In 1916 he was nominally attached to the Trade Division of the Admiralty Staff. Having qualified as a barrister, from March 1916 onwards he acted as counsel for the Admiralty in the many prize law claims arising from the capture or sinking of enemy vessels by British ships during the war.
  Although many countries (including Germany and the USA) had abjured the use of prize money by 1914, Britain and France signed an agreement that November establishing government jurisdiction over prizes captured singly or jointly by the signatories. Russia and Italy acceded in March 1915 and January 1917 respectively.
  In Britain, until the passing of the Navy Prize Act 1918 a bounty was paid to all ships present at an enemy vessel's actual destruction; each man on board the victorious ship(s), without distinction of rank, shared the money awarded by the court, based on the sum of £5 ($25) for each man on board the enemy ship. For example, a captured or sunk battleship with a complement of 453 officers and men (confirmed as soon as possible by affidavit) was worth £2,265.
  Anderson published his preparatory research into the legal questions surrounding the subject in his book Navy and prize: an essay (Anderson 1916). This concise volume reviewed the state of maritime law regarding prize bounty, salvage, and recapture.
  The war-time claims were heard in the Prize Court, part of the Admiralty Division of the High Court of Justice; its President at the time was Sir Samuel Evans. The Admiralty's counsel appeared on behalf of the ships' officers and crew, and the Crown counsel's job (according to Anderson) was partly to ensure that the court was not over-generous in its awards.
  Anderson appeared for the Admiralty in the first of these cases, which involved the sinking of SMS Cap Trafalgar by HMS Carmania in September 1914 (case heard 27 March 1916). The court upheld the claim, and many others. Anderson's later cases in the Prize Court include:
  The first actual engagement of the war, the sinking of the auxiliary cruiser SMS Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse in August 1914 (case heard 3 July 1916)
  Siege of Tsingtao, October–November 1914: seven German warships (case heard 23 April 1917). The motion revolved around a point of law: whether the involvement of the Army in the combined action took the claim outside the provisions of the Navy Prize Act 1864. Anderson, with a sense of history, drily noted that the last time this type of claim had been heard in the Court was a hundred years earlier, regarding La Bellone. Judgement was reserved.
  Battle of the Falkland Islands, December 1914, in which the armoured cruisers SMS Scharnhorst and Gneisenau were sunk, along with the light cruisers Dresden, Nurnberg and Leipzig. This was the first fleet action prize claim of the war.
  Battleship SMS Blücher sunk in the Battle of Dogger Bank January 1915 (case heard 15 January 1917)
  Battle for Lake Tanganyika Christmas 1915, in which HMS Mimi and HMS Toutou captured the German Kingani, renamed HMS Fifi
  In addition to the purely Naval cases, Anderson successfully presented the claims of British airmen involved in the sinking or destruction of enemy ships. Among these were:
  SMS Königsberg, scuttled July 1915 in the Rufiji River in east Africa: the first RNAS claim. Motion upheld.
  The sinking in January 1918 of the Midilli (the former SMS Breslau) during the Battle of Imbros, when several aircraft from Ark Royal took part in the action. This was the first prize claim (worth £2,750) involving the newly formed Royal Air Force. Among the air observers and pilots involved was the future Air Marshal Ralph Sorley. The court upheld the claim.
  These cases established a precedent relating to the application in the air of the principles of maritime prize law: it eventually found its way into UK legislation in the Prize Act 1939, replacing the Naval Prize Acts of 1864 and 1918.
  He was a member of the Grotius Society, and Fellow of the Zoological Society of London, 1917–1919.
  His book, T
caption: Action between Carmania and Cap Trafalgar off Trindade
exif: {}