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Submitted: 11/6/08 • Approved: 9/8/20 • Last Updated: 7/5/21 • R94936-G0-S3
Henry M. Britt, III
9 June 1919 - 17 February 1995
ASSISTANT UNITED STATES ATTORNEY FOR THE WESTERN DISTRICT OF ARKANSAS;
JUDGE OF THE 18TH JUDICIAL, EAST CIRCUIT OF ARKANSAS; NOMINATED FOR A FEDERAL JUDGESHIP
Henry Middleton Britt, III, was born on June 9, 1919, in the village of Olmsted in Pulaski County in southernmost Illinois to Henry Middleton Britt, Jr. (February 27, 1895-March 31, 1982), and the former Sarah Theodosia Roach (August 25, 1896-January 10, 1987). His grandparents were Henry Middleton Britt (b. Oct. 1867) and Ettie (Eastwood) Britt (b. June 1872), who were married in Pulaski County, Illinois on February 13, 1892. On October 29, 1942, Britt married the former Barbara Jean Holmes (March 17, 1922-February 13, 1987). The couple had three daughters: Nancy, Sarah, and Melissa. Britt studied at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he obtained his bachelor of arts and Juris Doctor degrees, and was admitted to the practice of law in Illinois in 1947. In 1948, he moved to Hot Springs, Arkansas, and was admitted to the Arkansas bar the same year. He served five years as an Eisenhower-appointed Assistant United States attorney for the Western District of Arkansas, based in Fort Smith, the seat of Sebastian County. In 1960, as a Republican, he began a campaign for Governor of Arkansas. He was defeated by the incumbent Democratic Governor of Arkansas, Orval Eugene Faubus. In 1966, he was elected Judge of the 18th Judicial Circuit of Arkansas, and served from 1967–1983. With support from Governor Winthrop Rockefeller, was credited with having ousted gambling from Hot Springs. He was reelected as circuit judge in 1970, 1974, and 1978. In 1976, then U.S. Representative John Paul Hammerschmidt of Harrison in Boone County, proposed to U.S. President Gerald R. Ford, Jr. that Britt be named to the federal judgeship vacated by the retirement of Oren Harris, a former U.S. representative from El Dorado, the seat of Union County in south Arkansas. The nomination failed due to a Democratic-controlled United States Senate. In 1992, he told the Los Angeles Times that he had assisted in the effort to keep Bill Clinton out of the Vietnam War. Britt had a heart attack in 1976, but lived until February 17, 1995, in Hot Springs, Arkansas, where he died after numerous health complications at the age of seventy-five.
Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_M._Britt (accessed Nov. 8, 2008)
[Biography compiled by Mitzi Hunter]
Contributed on 11/6/08 by pvhwdh
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Record #: 94936