Sir Joshua Hassan

Who is Sir Joshua Hassan?

Sir Joshua Abraham Hassan, nicknamed "Salvador" (Saviour), was born on 21 August 1915 in Gibraltar to a Sephardic Jewish family with roots in Morocco and Menorca. He trained as a lawyer at Middle Temple in London and was called to the Bar of England and Wales in 1939. When the Second World War broke out he volunteered as a gunner in the Gibraltar Defence Force and remained on the Rock while most of the civilian population was evacuated. He served as mayor of Gibraltar (1945-1950 and 1953-1969) and as chief member of the Legislative Council and Executive Council through the 1950s and early 1960s. When the post of Chief Minister was created in 1964, Hassan became the first to hold it, ultimately serving four terms spanning more than twenty years. He was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 1963 and is regarded as the central figure in Gibraltar's civil rights movement and the architect of its institutions of self-government. He resigned in 1987 after an airport-sharing agreement between Spain and the United Kingdom, citing personal reasons, and died on 1 July 1997. The law firm he founded, Hassans, remains the largest in Gibraltar today.

Sources: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, "Hassan, Sir Joshua Abraham (1915-1997)" · Wikipedia, "Joshua Hassan" · Hassans International Law Firm, company history page (gibraltarlaw.com)