Dublin-born barrister among last links with imperial British order

Arthur William Edge Wheeler, who has died aged 83, represented one of the last Irish links with the late imperial British order.

A Dublin-born barrister, and a great grandson of the second editor of The Irish Times, the Rev George Bomforde Wheeler, he was successively Crown Counsel in Nigeria, acting legal secretary in the (British) Southern Cameroons and a member of the executive council and house of assembly there, and a public crown counsel in the newly created Federation of Nigeria.

After Nigerian independence in 1960, he continued to serve his adopted African country as deputy Solicitor-General from 1964 in the Northern Province, as Director of Public Prosecutions there from 1966, as a High Court judge from 1967, and finally as Chief Justice of the Province, from 1975 until his retirement from Nigerian service in 1980.

In recognition of this service, he was awarded an OBE in 1967, and CBE in 1979, by the British government.

Gold looted by Nazis
On returning to the United Kingdom in the early 1980s, after a period of time spent back in Dublin revising legal textbooks for use in Nigeria, Wheeler commenced the challenging task of working for the Foreign Compensation Commission (FCC), an organisation set up by the British government after the second World War to recompense British citizens, and sometimes others, who had had property expropriated or otherwise lost abroad.

One of his most interesting cases while at the commission was to consider the fate of more than £40 million in gold bullion looted by the Nazis during the war from Russia, which in fact represented the property of peoples of many nationalities, and which had been deposited by the Germans in Swiss bank accounts, from which it was eventually recovered.

Wheeler was chairman of the FCC from 1983 until 1995. He served also on the Social Services and Child Support Commissions, both organisations which adjudicated on claims referred to them by Appeals Tribunals from all parts of the United Kingdom, from 1992 until 1998, and from 1993 until 1998 respectively.

He and his wife Gay (née Brady), whom he had married in 1955, retired in the latter year to live back in Sutton in north Dublin, close to where they had originally grown up in Clontarf.

Arthur Wheeler was born in Dublin in 1930, the son of Arthur Wheelers snr, an insurance broker, and his wife ,Rowena, née Edge.

Capacity to compromise
The family was clearly open-minded: at a time when religious affiliation mattered a great deal in Irish society, Wheeler snr, who was a member of the Church of Ireland, and his wife, a Baptist, compromised by raising their six children as Presbyterians.

Young Arthur attended Mountjoy School in Dublin, now Mount Temple Comprehensive School, perhaps most famous in later years as the birth place of the rock group U2. One of Arthur Wheeler's nephews, Tim Wheeler, is the lead singer of the rock group Ash.

Wheeler read law at Trinity College, Dublin, and the King's Inns.

He was called to the Bar in 1953, practising in Dublin until he joined the Nigerian legal service in 1955.

At Trinity College, he was awarded the Reid Professor’s Prize (for legal studies), and, as a notable athlete, won his University Colours in both Hockey and Soccer.

He would later play hockey for the Nigerian national team. He also played cricket with Clontarf Cricket Club.

He is survived by his wife, a former Irish Ladies’ Backstroke Champion, two sons, Guy and Mark, and a daughter, Gail.