Rumpole of the Bailey public school) and studied law at either Keble College or the fictional "St Joseph's College", Oxford, coming away with "a dubious third". He would not be eligible to be called to the Bar in England today, as a lower second is the minimum requirement. He was called to the bar at the "Outer Temple" (a fictional Inn of Court, named on the analogy of the Inner Temple, where John Mortimer was called, and the Middle Temple). Apart from the legal drama in each story, Rumpole also has to deal with his relationships with family and friends. His wife Hilda was
Rumpole of the Bailey is mentioned that Rumpole was born sometime before the outbreak of World War I. These last two pieces of information would indicate a birth year of 1911, but later books contradict this. "Rumpole and the Primrose Path", for instance, appeared in 2003 and was set in the present day, but Rumpole was in his seventies, not 92. Nonetheless, when in "Rumpole and the Primrose Path" Erskine-Brown asks Rumpole what he sings to himself when he is alone, Rumpole replies, "A ballad of the war years." In general, in the book series, it would seem that Rumpole has been frozen at