Francis Biddle
Francis Beverley Biddle (May 19, 1886 – October 4, 1968) was an American lawyer and judge who was Attorney General of the United States during World War II and who served as the primary American judge during the postwar Nuremberg trials.
Life and career
Born in Paris, France, Biddle was one of four sons of Frances Brown (née Robinson) and Algernon Sydney Biddle, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania of the Biddle family. He was also a great-great-grandson of Edmund Randolph, and a half second cousin four times removed of James Madison. He was born in Paris while his family was living abroad. He graduated from the Groton School, where he participated in boxing.
He earned degrees from Harvard University in 1909 (A.B.) and 1911 (law degree). He first worked as a private secretary to Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. from 1911 to 1912. He spent the next 27 years practicing law in Philadelphia, PA. In 1912, he supported the presidential candidacy of former U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt's renegade Bull Moose Party. He was also served briefly during World War I as a private the United States Army from October 23 to November 30, 1918.
