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Sitting at breakfast in the grand Hotel Victoria- Jungfrau, as a very new and humble member of our Society on the 1978 Swiss trip, I was startled to find Professor Moriarty in person taking the place beside me. “Ah, good morning” he said to the assembled company, and it sounded like a silken but deadly threat.
Charles Scholefield, QC., who died last autumn, was simply the best Moriarty any of us had ever seen. His resemblance to the Paget illustrations was remarkable, his presence daunting — he was well over six feet in height — and his air of quiet menace chillingly convincing. And yet, as we quickly discovered, the real Charles was the most kindly, modest and quietly witty man imaginable. He claimed not to be a great Canonical scholar, but he had been a member of the Society from its very early days and his contribution was immense. He first served on the Council in 1964; he became Chairman in 1971 and was a natural successor to Lord Gore-Booth as President in 1978.
We have not seen Charles at meetings in recent years, as age and ill-health made it difficult for him to travel, but he kept in touch with the Society and its affairs. He will be much missed and long remembered.
This is reproduced from the obituary written by Heather Owen which appeared in the SHJ 21/4 Summer 1994
