John Sankey, 1st Viscount Sankey, was born on October 26, 1866, in Moreton, Gloucestershire, England.

He was a British lawyer, judge, and Labour politician. He was educated at Lancing College, Sussex, and Jesus College, Oxford (B.A., 1889; B.C.L., 1891). He was called to the Bar at Middle Temple in 1892 and was appointed a King's Counsel in 1909. Sankey became a judge of the High Court, King's Bench Division, in 1914. In 1928, he was appointed a Lord Justice of the Court of Appeal and became a member of the Privy Council. Sankey was made a Baron in 1929 and a Viscount in 1932. In 1929, he became the Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain in the second Labour Government and retained this office until 1935. He was chairman of the Coal Commission (1919) and a member of the Indian Round Table Conference. His services were in great demand on many commissions and committees, legal, educational, and ecclesiastical. He was a loyal and devoted churchman and was largely responsible for the framing of the constitution of the Church in Wales. He was an honorary Fellow of Jesus College, Oxford, and in 1929, he received the honorary degree of LL.D. from the University of Wales. He was also an honorary graduate of the Universities of Oxford (1930), Cambridge (1932), and Bristol (1933).

He died unmarried on February 6, 1948, in London, England.