Robert Francis Vere Heuston, QC (Hon.
He was related to the Irish nationalist Robert Emmet.
He was educated at St Columba's College, Dublin and Trinity College Dublin, where he read Law and obtained first-class honours.
Heuston was called to the Irish Bar by King's Inns in 1947, but decided to pursue an academic career.
He joined St John's College, Cambridge as a research student, but soon left Cambridge, upon his election as the first law fellow of Pembroke College, Oxford in 1947, where he remained until 1965, when he joined the University of Southampton as a Professor of Law.