Appendix 1. McRuer's Authorship of an Anonymous Memoir of Tilley

• Author: C. Ian Kyer
• Pages: 199-201

199

appendix 1

McRuer’s Authorship of an

Anonymous Memoir of Tilley

I 1969,  Law Society Gazette published an anonymous f‌ive-

page memoir about Norman Tilley entitled “W. N. Tilley, KC

as I Remember Him.”1 The memoir provides several insights

into the Smith/Jarvis prosecution and trial as well as the Pepall trial.

I believe the author was James McRuer, Tilley’s junior, and those

insights were his.

The author is described only as someone who had been at the

Ontario bar with Tilley for “some 25 years” and who had been in a

number of cases involving Tilley. A year earlier, John Honsberger,

the editor of the Law Society Gazette, had published a prof‌ile of Til-

ley based on interviews with a number of senior lawyers and judges,

including recently retired Chief Justice James McRuer.2

The author of the 1969 memoir alluded to the Honsberger arti-

cle, making several comments and clarif‌ications. First, he wanted to

clarify that Tilley’s “hearty” laugh during court proceedings was not

the sharing of a happy moment. It was a strategic ridiculing of an

opponent’s position. The laugh was more “gargantuan” than hearty.3

Tilley was of the old school, he explained. The opposing counsel was

the enemy. The author also wanted to provide the context for a refer-

ence in the 1968 article to advice given by Tilley to McRuer with respect

to a trip taken by McRuer to California. The author explained that the