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 separated. The play features a character, Leonard Hoskins (played by John Nettleton), a divorce lawyer with a domineering mother, who can be seen as an early prototype of Horace Rumpole. In the mid-1970s, Mortimer approached BBC producer Irene Shubik, who had overseen "Infidelity Took Place" and who was now one of the two producers overseeing "Play For Today" – the successor series to "The Wednesday Play" as the BBC's strand for contemporary drama. Mortimer presented an idea for a new play, titled "My Darling Prince, Peter Kropotkin", that centred on a barrister called Horace Rumbold. Rumbold would have a particular