In 1949, Radcliffe was made a Lord of Appeal in Ordinary, sworn of the Privy Council, and created a life peer as Baron Radcliffe, of Werneth in the County of Lancaster. Unusually, he had not previously been a judge. In the 1940s and 1950s he chaired a string of public enquiries in addition to his legal duties and continued to hold numerous trusteeships, governorships and chairmanships right up until his death. He chaired the Committee of Enquiry into the Future of the British Film Institute (1948), whose recommendations led to the modernisation of the BFI in the post-war period.