Julian Amery

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Minister for Housing and Construction
In office
15 October 1970 – 5 November 1972
Prime MinisterEdward Heath
Preceded byOffice established
Succeeded byPaul Channon
Minister of Public Buildings and Works
In office
23 June 1970 – 14 October 1970
Preceded byJohn Silkin
Succeeded byOffice abolished
Member of Parliament
for Preston North
In office
23 February 1950 – 10 March 1966
Preceded byConstituency created
Succeeded byRonald Atkins
Member of Parliament
for Brighton Pavilion
In office
27 March 1969 – 16 March 1992
Preceded bySir William Teeling
Succeeded byDerek Spencer
Personal details
Born(1919-03-27)27 March 1919
Died3 September 1996(1996-09-03) (aged 77)
Second World War

Harold Julian Amery, Baron Amery of Lustleigh,

Privy Council
in 1960.

Amery was created a life peer upon his retirement from the

Second World War.[1]

Early and family life

Amery was born in

undergraduate, he had a brief romance with the future novelist Barbara Pym, who was six years his senior.[3][4]

Military service

Before the

General List in 1941, reaching the rank of Captain
.

He spent 1941–42 in the eastern Mediterranean (the Middle East,

Zog of Albania and described him as "the cleverest man I have ever met".[5]

Political career

Amery won a Parliamentary seat in the first general election held after he returned to civilian life, in 1950. He was elected as Conservative MP for Preston North, going on to hold a number of government offices, all in governments led by his father-in-law, now the Prime Minister. He began with two Under-Secretaryships of State: for War (1957–58) and for the Colonies (1958–60). He was promoted to Secretary of State for Air (1960–62), followed by a promotion to the post of Minister of Aviation (1962–64). In this role and during this two-year period, Amery was involved in the planning stages of what would become the supersonic passenger service known as Concorde.

Amery lost his Preston North seat in 1966, but was re-elected to the Commons in 1969 representing Brighton Pavilion, a seat he would hold until 1992 when he retired. On 8 July 1992, he was created a life peer as Baron Amery of Lustleigh, of Preston in the County of Lancashire and of Brighton in the County of East Sussex.[6]

Under the Heath administration, Amery held three ministerial posts: Minister for Public Works (1970), Minister for Housing and Construction (1970–72) and Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (1972–74).

Monday Club

For 30 years, Amery was an active member and later a Patron of the

Conservative Monday Club, where he became friendly with General Sir Walter Walker
, subsequently writing the foreword for Walker's anti-Soviet book, The Next Domino.

He was Guest of Honour at the club's Annual Dinner at the Cutlers' Hall in 1963. In 1965, he wrote the foreword for Club activist Geoffrey Stewart-Smith's book, No Vision Here. On May Day 1970, he was one of the club's principal speakers at their 'Law and Liberty' rally in Trafalgar Square, held in answer to the 'Stop the Seventy Tour' campaign, designed to stop the South African cricket tour.

Amery was the Monday Club's Guest-of-Honour at their Annual Dinner held at the Savoy Hotel, London, in January 1974 and again at the dinner at the end of the club's two-day Conference in Birmingham in March 1975.

Political views

Amery was in favour of entry to the

Empire" school.[7] In 1948, Amery opposed GATT, arguing that it limited imperial preference.[8]

In late 1962 Amery made these comments after Egypt sent troops to

Colonel Nasser's in Egypt are just as dangerous."[9]

In 1963, Amery took charge of Quintin Hogg's campaign for leadership of the Conservative Party.[10]

In early 1975, he took part in a

Trades Unions Congress's invitation to Alexander Shelepin, the former Soviet KGB Chief, to visit Britain. He stated that "more and more people are beginning to look upon the TUC as a Communist-penetrated show and this invitation must strengthen that view."[citation needed
]

According to

devolution for Scotland in 1976, "Julian Amery and Maurice Macmillan proved effective leaders of the anti-devolution Tory camp."[citation needed
]

Although he was Harold Macmillan's son-in-law, he did not defend him when Count Nikolai Tolstoy published The Minister and the Massacres in 1986, focusing the ultimate burden of blame sharply on Macmillan for the 1945 Bleiburg repatriations and the Cossack repatriations. Amery stated that the repatriations were "one of the few blots on Harold that I can think of".[11]

Personal life

On 26 January 1950, he married Catherine Macmillan (19 November 1926 – 27 May 1991), daughter of Harold Macmillan. The couple had one son and three daughters.[12]

Death

Amery died on 3 September 1996 in

Westminster, London. He is buried with his wife (who predeceased him) at the Church of St John the Baptist in Lustleigh, Devon, along with his father Leo Amery.[13]

Notes

Citations
  1. ^ "Amery sentenced to death". The Times. London. 29 November 1945. Archived from the original on 4 March 2012. Retrieved 16 March 2022.
  2. OCLC 751719981
    .
  3. .
  4. . The index contains a combined total of over 70 page numbers and page ranges either directly about, or mentioning, Amery.
  5. ^ Amery, Julian, Approach March: a Venture in Autobiography. Hutchinson, 1973
  6. ^ "No. 52988". The London Gazette. 13 July 1992. p. 11759.
  7. ^ "Julian Amery dies". The Independent. London. 4 September 1996. Archived from the original on 25 April 2019. Retrieved 2 August 2020.
  8. .
  9. ^ Curtis, Adam (1999). "The Mayfair Set". Broadcast on BBC2. Archived from the original on 1 February 2008. Retrieved 13 February 2008. Excerpt: David Stirling was a close friend of Julian Amery's and together they were determined to find a way to stop Nasser... Stirling and Amery had dinner with the foreign secretary, Alec Douglas Hume, at the White's Club in St. James's. They proposed a plan: a group of SAS men would mount an operation to fight the Egyptians, but they would do it privately
  10. ^ cf. Heffer, 189; 324
  11. ^ "Lady Caroline Faber: Daughter of Harold Macmillan who disliked politics but campaigned for her relatives". The Times. London. 19 September 2016.
  12. ^ "Lord Amery of Lustleigh: Obituary". The Independent. 5 September 1996. Archived from the original on 2 July 2020. Retrieved 2 August 2020.
  13. ^ "Harold Julian Amery". www.findagrave.com. Archived from the original on 31 October 2021. Retrieved 2 August 2020.
Bibliography

Primary sources

Further reading

External links

Parliament of the United Kingdom
New constituency Member of Parliament for Preston North
19501966
Succeeded by
Preceded by Member of Parliament for Brighton Pavilion
19691992
Succeeded by
Political offices
Preceded by Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies
1958–1960
Succeeded by
Preceded by Secretary of State for Air
1960–1962
Succeeded by
Preceded by
Minister of Aviation

1962–1964
Succeeded by