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Ten years after the Marchioness pleasure boat sank on a summer’s night in 1989 – drowning 51 people, mainly young partygoers, in the swirling waters of the Thames – Anthony Clarke, then a lord justice of appeal, was asked to hold an inquiry.

As a result of his authoritative and swiftly delivered reports, safety on the river has significantly improved. There are now four RNLI lifeboat stations covering the busy, urban waterway from Teddington to Gravesend in Kent.

Lord Clarke of Stone-cum-Ebony, who has died aged 82 after suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, was selected for the sensitive role by John Prescott, the transport secretary and deputy prime minister. The Labour government believed there were lessons yet to be learned even after inquests had been held and an accident investigation conducted.

In his first report, Thames Safety Inquiry, published in early 2000, Clarke, an expert in shipping law, concluded that a fresh examination of the disaster – caused by a collision between the Marchioness and a dredger, the Bowbelle, near Southwark Bridge – was needed.

He chaired the judicial inquiry that followed, publishing additional reports in 2001. Altogether he made a total of 74 recommendations, the vast majority of which were adopted. The “basic cause of the collision,” he observed, “… was poor lookout on both vessels. Neither … saw the other in time to take action to avoid the collision.”

One of his recommendations was for alcohol tests for mariners; the captain of the Bowbelle, which rammed and sank the Marchioness, had drunk six pints of lager in the afternoon before the collision in the early hours. Among other issues Clarke had to deal with was the coroner’s decision to cut off the hands of some of the victims for identification purposes, adding to public alarm over the accident.

Prescott later thanked Clarke in the Commons for a “remarkable piece of work” that “restored confidence in the type of investigations that can take place in the event of such tragedies, which we all want to avoid”.

Though a lawyer of modesty and good humour, Clarke was a formidable cross-examiner – focused, tough and possessed of a quick intelligence. During one case, an excitable witness exclaimed: “If you ask me any more questions, Mr Clarke, I will jump out of the window.” Clarke, remaining assured and even-tempered, remarked: “I would not wish to interrupt your plans, but before you go would you mind answering one last question?”

Clarke, known as Tony, was born in Ayr. His mother, Isobel (nee Kay), was Scottish, and his English father, Harry Clarke, was a maltster, from a family of brewers; the family later moved to Lincolnshire. Tony was one of four children.

He attended Oakham school in Rutland. His interest in courts was first aroused by newspaper reports of the 1957 murder trial of the alleged serial killer John Bodkin Adams. At King’s College, Cambridge, he read economics and law.

In 1965, Clarke was admitted to Middle Temple. After contacting a fellow King’s alumnus, Nicholas Phillips (later Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers, who became the first president of the supreme court), he secured barrister pupillage at Two Essex Court (now Quadrant Chambers), which specialised in maritime law. Clarke had no nautical experience but took to the specialism with enthusiasm.

In 1968, he married Rosemary Adam; they met after a Beatles concert. Clarke was appointed a QC in 1979 and appeared in shipping cases in Hong Kong and Singapore as well as at the public inquiry into the 1987 loss of the Herald of Free Enterprise roll on/roll off ferry.

He sat as a recorder, or part-time judge, in both civil and criminal cases, from 1985 until made a high court judge in 1993. He was put in charge of the admiralty court and for a time held the title of Admiralty Judge of the Cinque Ports. Five years later he was promoted to the court of appeal and in 2005 became master of the rolls, head of the civil judiciary in England and Wales.

In 2009, Clarke became the first judge who had not sat in the House of Lords to be appointed a justice of the newly created supreme court, though the timing was such that he was still made a life peer. Among landmark cases for which he delivered the lead judgment were Autoclenz Ltd v Belcher, which upheld the employment rights of contract cleaners, and Rainy Sky SA v Kookmin Bank, a shipping case that reinforced the principle of “business common sense” in interpreting ambiguous commercial agreements.

In Gaughran v the Chief Constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland (2015), Clarke, with whom a majority agreed, ruled that it was proportionate for the police to retain DNA information, explaining: “The potential benefit to the public of retaining the DNA profiles of those who are convicted is considerable and outweighs the interference with the right of the individual.” The decision was later overturned by the European court of human rights on the grounds that indefinite retention required further safeguards.

He was one of eight justices who constituted the majority in the supreme court’s article 50 ruling in 2017 that the government needed parliamentary approval to authorise the UK’s departure from the EU following the Brexit referendum.

Clarke retired from the court later that year but served on the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal until 2020. The Latin motto on his coat of arms was “Festina Lente”: “Make haste slowly”. It was characteristic of a judge who once declared in a speech: “I like to think that a happy judge is a good judge.”

At their combined valedictory ceremony, Lord Neuberger, president of the supreme court, paid tribute to him as “the genial and intelligent glue which has ensured the cohesion of the court”.

Outside the law, Clarke enjoyed bridge, golf, tennis and hockey, for which he was known on Dulwich’s sports field as “Chopper Clarke”, and he had been a keen skier in his youth. Phillips said: “Some people get to the top through burning ambition. [Lord Clarke] was a remarkably well-balanced person. He didn’t set out to be a great jurist but was someone with great common sense.”

Rosemary survives him, along with their three children, Ben, Thomas and Sally, and six grandchildren.

• Anthony Peter Clarke, Lord Clarke of Stone-cum-Ebony, barrister and judge, born 13 May 1943; died 16 April 2026