Chief Justice Lyon of the Seychelles

By Julien Durup a student of history

Chief Justice Malcolm Douglas Lyon, alias Dar Lyon, can be regarded as the most despicable Chief Justice of the Seychelles. He started his first career in Suffolk as a farmer in 1923. Three years later he was called to the bar, and started his practice in the South Eastern Circuit and in London. He became a politician in 1929, and took part in the General Election as a Liberal party candidate, for the constituency of Bury Saint Edmunds, in Suffolk.

Dar Lyon was a Jew, born on the 22nd of April 1898, at Caterham in the Tunbridge District of Surrey, in England. He was educated at Rugby School in Warwickshire, one of the oldest independent schools in Britain. He completed his schooling in the middle of the First World War and was called up for Service in the British Army and was wounded in action. He served in the Royal Field Artillery and was commissioned on the 20th February 1917. After the end of the war, Dar Lyon continued his studies at Trinity College, the most aristocratic college in Cambridge, England.

He was married on the 9th of May 1928 to Helen Alice Elliot. After his divorce, he married again in 1941, to Doreen Healey and had four sons and two daughters.

In 1932, he joined the Colonial Civil Service and was posted as magistrate in Bangul the capital of Gambia, the smallest country on the mainland Africa. Bangul was formerly named ‘Bathurst’ in honour of Henry Bathurst the British Foreign Secretary, but Bangul is from ‘Bung Julo’ the Mandinka (Mandé) word for fibre. On the 9th June 1933, he was appointed Legal Adviser and served on the Executive and Legislative Councils of Gambia as one of the official advisors of the governor. From Gambia he was transferred to the post of Resident Magistrate in Dar es Salaam (meaning harbour of peace) Tanganyika (now Tanzania) where he served until 1939.

With the outbreak of the Second World War, Dar Lyon joined the army on 28 December 1939, as second lieutenant in the Royal Artillery. He served as a Deputy Assistant Adjutant General at the War Office until 1941. He was later made lieutenant-colonel when he took command of a light anti-aircraft artillery regiment in Gibraltar.

At the end of the war, he was appointed on the 30th April 1945 as Resident Magistrate in Nairobi, (from the Maasai word ‘Enkare Nyirobi’ meaning ‘the place of cool waters’) Kenya. Two years later, he was posted as Resident Magistrate in Eldoret in the Rift Valley, Kenya. Eldoret also comes from the Maasai word ‘Eldore’ meaning ‘stony river’.

In 1948, Dar Lyon, was transferred to the Seychelles to take the post of Chief Justice. There he served until 1957 when he was appointed a puisne judge in the Supreme Court of Kampala, the capital city of Uganda. (The British named the hill in the centre present metropolitan ‘The Hill of the impala’; and the Ganda natives called it ‘Akasozi K’empala’ henceforth the word Kampala). He served in Uganda until 1961 and retired to England where he died on the 17th of February 1964. Dar Lyon was the best ever professional cricketer to have played in the Seychelles. He was described after his death as being “considered by many to be among the best batsmen who never gained a cap for England. As a professional, he passed 1,000 runs in the 1923 season.

In the Seychelles, Dar Lyon was always under the influence of alcohol and was unfit for high office. You do not have to be graphologist to see that his writing was that of an alcoholic. He adjourned the court at any time to go to the Seychelles Club for his whisky. He constantly drove his car under the influence of alcohol, but the police dare not interfere; they had allowed him to drive his car without rear-lights or a rear number plate, and motor tax licence.

All his orders taken in appeal to the High Court of Mauritius were either reversed or modified. In 1954 the people of the Seychelles had enough of him; most of the leading citizens signed a petition about his conduct and sent it to Alan Lennox-Boyd, (a former barrister) the Secretary of State for the Colonies. Lennox-Boyd, who was known for his cover up of the Hola Massacre, lied to parliament to cover up his noble friend Dar Lyon. However, the petition caused considerable debate in the House of Commons in July and August 1956.

While in the Seychelles, Dar Lyon behaved like a politician and was supported by the white elites to eliminate Ėvariste Collet. He publicly voiced his racist attitude against Collet. He described Évariste as a Blackman tricked out as a British barrister, and refused to attend functions at the Government House if Collet was also invited.

Before he left, Dar Lyon had an affair with one his maids and they had a son. This boy is now a grown up man and bears his resemblance. It seems that Dar Lyon kept this as a secret, because his British son who came on holiday to the Seychelles visited ‘La Bastille’ their former domicile, but not bother to inquire about his half-brother and his father’s Seychelloise lover.

Ref.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dar_Lyon
http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1956/jul/25/chief-justice-petition#S5CV0557P0_19560725_HOC_228
http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1956/jul/26/question-of-privilege#S5CV0557P0_19560726_HOC_258
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Jews_in_sports#Cricket#
William McAteer: TO BE A NATION, 2008
Deryck Scarr: Seychelles since 1770: 2000