John Donaldson, Baron Donaldson of Lymington war in 1945. He served in the military government of Schleswig-Holstein, and was demobbed as a lieutenant-colonel aged 25. He married Dorothy Mary Warwick (later known as Dame Mary Donaldson), in 1945, having met her at Middlesex Hospital where she was working as a nurse. She later became the first woman to be a Member of the City of London Court of Common Council, the first female Alderman, the first female Sheriff and, finally, in 1983, the first female Lord Mayor of London. Together, they had two daughters and a son; his wife predeceased him in October 2003. Donaldson was
John Donaldson, Baron Donaldson of Lymington the civil division of the Court of Appeal of England and Wales, where he pushed forward modernisation efforts, including the introduction of skeleton arguments in civil appeals, judgments being "handed down" rather than read, and enhanced case management. Donaldson decided in "O'Kelly v. Trusthouse Forte plc" [1983] ICR 728, Donaldson's early reforms would later be overtaken by the Civil Procedure Rules introduced by a later Master of the Rolls, Lord Woolf. In 1988 he was elevated to the House of Lords as a Life Peer: Baron Donaldson of Lymington, of Lymington in the County of Hampshire. In his various roles,