Quintin Hogg, Baron Hailsham of St Marylebone
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Secretary of State for Education and Science | |||||||||||||||||
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In office 1 April 1964 – 16 October 1964 | |||||||||||||||||
Prime Minister | Sir Alec Douglas-Home | ||||||||||||||||
Preceded by | Edward Boyle (Minister for Education) | ||||||||||||||||
Succeeded by | Michael Stewart | ||||||||||||||||
In office 14 January 1957 – 17 September 1957 Minister for Education | |||||||||||||||||
Prime Minister | Harold Macmillan | ||||||||||||||||
Preceded by | Sir David Eccles | ||||||||||||||||
Succeeded by | Geoffrey Lloyd | ||||||||||||||||
Lord President of the Council | |||||||||||||||||
In office 27 July 1960 – 16 October 1964 | |||||||||||||||||
Prime Minister | Harold Macmillan Sir Alec Douglas-Home | ||||||||||||||||
Preceded by | The Earl of Home | ||||||||||||||||
Succeeded by | Herbert Bowden | ||||||||||||||||
In office 17 September 1957 – 14 October 1959 | |||||||||||||||||
Prime Minister | Harold Macmillan | ||||||||||||||||
Preceded by | The Earl of Home | ||||||||||||||||
Succeeded by | The Earl of Home | ||||||||||||||||
Leader of the House of Lords | |||||||||||||||||
In office 27 July 1960 – 20 October 1963 | |||||||||||||||||
Prime Minister | Harold Macmillan | ||||||||||||||||
Preceded by | The Earl of Home | ||||||||||||||||
Succeeded by | The Lord Carrington | ||||||||||||||||
Chairman of the Conservative Party | |||||||||||||||||
In office 18 September 1957 – 14 October 1959 | |||||||||||||||||
Leader | Harold Macmillan | ||||||||||||||||
Preceded by | The Lord Poole | ||||||||||||||||
Succeeded by | Rab Butler | ||||||||||||||||
Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal | |||||||||||||||||
In office 14 October 1959 – 27 July 1960 | |||||||||||||||||
Prime Minister | Harold Macmillan | ||||||||||||||||
Preceded by | Rab Butler | ||||||||||||||||
Succeeded by | Edward Heath | ||||||||||||||||
First Lord of the Admiralty | |||||||||||||||||
In office 19 October 1956 – 14 January 1957 | |||||||||||||||||
Prime Minister | Anthony Eden | ||||||||||||||||
Preceded by | The Viscount Cilcennin | ||||||||||||||||
Succeeded by | The Earl of Selkirk | ||||||||||||||||
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Air | |||||||||||||||||
In office 12 April 1945 – 4 August 1945 Serving with The Lord Sherwood and The Earl Beatty | |||||||||||||||||
Prime Minister | Winston Churchill | ||||||||||||||||
Preceded by | The Lord Sherwood | ||||||||||||||||
Succeeded by | John Strachey | ||||||||||||||||
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Personal details | |||||||||||||||||
Born | Quintin McGarel Hogg 9 October 1907 London, England | ||||||||||||||||
Died | 12 October 2001 London, England | (aged 94)||||||||||||||||
Political party | Conservative | ||||||||||||||||
Spouses | Natalie Sullivan
(m. 1932; div. 1943)Mary Martin
(m. 1944; died 1978)Deirdre Shannon
(m. 1986; died 1998) | ||||||||||||||||
Children | 5, including Douglas Hogg | ||||||||||||||||
Alma mater | Christ Church, Oxford | ||||||||||||||||
Quintin McGarel Hogg, Baron Hailsham of St Marylebone,
Like his father, Hailsham was considered to be a contender for the leadership of the Conservative Party. He was a contender to succeed Harold Macmillan as prime minister in 1963, renouncing his hereditary peerage to do so, but was passed over in favour of Sir Alec Douglas-Home. He was created a life peer in 1970 and served as Lord Chancellor, the office formerly held by his father, in 1970-74 and 1979–87.
Background
Born in
Hogg was educated at
Hogg spoke in opposition to the motion "That this House will in no circumstances fight for its King and Country" in the
Politics and Second World War
Hogg participated in his first election campaign in the
Hogg voted against
Conservative minister
Hogg's father died in 1950 and Hogg entered the
As First Lord, Hailsham was briefed about Eden's plans to use military force against Egypt, which he thought were 'madness'. Nevertheless, once
Hailsham became Minister of Education in 1957 under Macmillan, holding the office for eight months, before accepting appointment as Lord President of the Council and Chairman of the Conservative Party in September 1957.[3] During his term as Party Chairman, the Conservative Party won a notable victory in the 1959 general election, which it had been predicted to lose. Nevertheless, shortly after the election, Hailsham was sidelined, and was made Minister for Science and Technology, serving in that post until 1964. His tenure as Science Minister was successful, and he was later elected to the Royal Society under Statute 12 in 1973.[3]
Concurrently, Hailsham was Lord Privy Seal between 1959 and 1960, Lord President of the Council between 1960 and 1964, and Leader of the House of Lords between 1960 and 1963, having been Deputy Leader between 1957 and 1960. He was also given a number of special assignments by Macmillan, becoming Minister with special responsibility for Sport from 1962 to 1964, for unemployment in the North-East between 1963 and 1964 and for higher education between 1963 and 1964. Hailsham, who had little interest in sports, thought little of his appointment as de facto Sports minister, later writing that "[t]he idea of a Minister for Sport has always appalled me. It savours of dictatorship and the nastiest kind of populist or Fascist dictatorship at that."
Hailsham appeared before the
In June 1963 when his fellow Minister John Profumo had to resign after admitting lying to Parliament about his private life, Hailsham attacked him savagely on television. The Labour MP Reginald Paget called this "a virtuoso performance of the art of kicking a friend in the guts". He added, "When self-indulgence has reduced a man to the shape of Lord Hailsham, sexual continence involves no more than a sense of the ridiculous".[8]
In July 15, he and
Disclaimer of peerage and Conservative Party leadership bid
Hailsham was Leader of the House of Lords when Harold Macmillan announced his sudden resignation from the premiership for health reasons at the start of the 1963 Conservative Party conference. At that time there was no formal ballot for the Conservative Party leadership.[10] Hailsham, who was at first Macmillan's preferred successor, announced that he would use the newly enacted Peerage Act to disclaim his title and fight a by-election and return to the House of Commons. His publicity-seeking antics at the Party Conference—such as feeding his baby daughter in public,[3] and allowing his supporters to distribute "Q" (for Quintin) badges—were considered vulgar at the time, so Macmillan did not encourage senior party members to choose him as his successor.[citation needed]
Eventually, on the advice of Macmillan, The Queen chose the Sir Alec Douglas-Home to succeed Macmillan as prime minister. Hailsham nevertheless renounced his peerage on 20 November 1963, becoming again Quintin Hogg. He stood and was elected as MP for St Marylebone, his father's old constituency, in the 1963 St Marylebone by-election.[3]
Hogg as a campaigner was known for his robust rhetoric and theatrical gestures. He was usually in good form in dealing with hecklers, a valuable skill in the 1960s, and was prominent in the 1964 general election. One evening when giving a political address, he was hailed by his supporters as he leaned over the lectern pointing at a long-haired heckler. He said, "Now, see here, Sir or Madam whichever the case might be, we have had enough of you!" The police ejected the man and the crowd applauded and Hogg went on as if nothing had happened. Another time, when a Labour Party supporter waved a Harold Wilson placard in front of him, Hogg smacked it with his walking-stick.[citation needed]
Lord Chancellorship
Hogg served in the Conservative shadow cabinet during the Wilson government, and built up his practice at the bar where one of his clients was the Prime Minister and political opponent Harold Wilson.[11] When Edward Heath won the 1970 general election he received a life peerage as Baron Hailsham of St Marylebone, of Herstmonceux in the County of Sussex, and became Lord Chancellor. Hogg was the first to return to the House of Lords as a life peer after having disclaimed an hereditary peerage. Hailsham's choice of Lord Widgery as Lord Chief Justice was criticised by his opponents, although he later redeemed himself in the eyes of the profession by appointing Lord Lane to succeed Widgery. His appointment as Lord Chancellor caused some amusement; in October 1962 he had told a journalist (Logan Gourlay of the Daily Express) that when he had inherited his title he had thought that by 1970 if the Tory Government were in power “some ass might make me Lord Chancellor”.
During his first term as Lord Chancellor, Hailsham oversaw the passage of the
Hailsham announced his retirement after the end of the Heath government in 1974. He popularised the term '
Hailsham was widely considered as a traditionalist Lord Chancellor. He put great emphasis on the traditional roles of his post, sitting on the Appellate Committee of the House of Lords more frequently than any of his post-war predecessors.[3] Appointment of deputies to preside over the Lords enabled him to give more time to judicial work, although he often sat on the woolsack himself. He was protective of the English bar, opposing the appointment of solicitors to the High Court and the extension of their rights of audience. He was, however, responsible for implementing the far-reaching 1971 reform of the courts system, and championed law reform and the work of the Law Commission.
Retirement
After his retirement, Hailsham vigorously opposed the Thatcher government's plans to reform the legal profession. He opposed the introduction of contingency fees, observing that the professions were "not like the grocer's shop at the corner of a street in a town like Grantham" - a reference to Margaret Thatcher's origins - (Hansard 5L, 505.1334, 7 April 1989)[12] and arguing that the Courts and Legal Services Act (1990) disregarded "almost every principle of the methodology which law reform ought to attract" and was no less than an attempt to "nationalise the profession and part of the judiciary" (Hansard 5L, 514.151, 19 December 1989).[3]
Towards the end of his life Hailsham suffered from depression, which he managed somewhat by his lifelong love of classical literature.[3]
Hailsham remained an active if semi-detached member of the governing body of All Souls College almost until his death.[3]
Honours
In addition to his peerages, he was appointed a
Personal life
Hailsham was married three times. He was married firstly in 1932 to Natalie Sullivan.[3] The marriage was dissolved in 1943 after he returned from the war to find her, as he later put it in a television interview, "not alone": she was with French president Charles de Gaulle's chef de cabinet, François Coulet , with whom she remained until his death in 1984, dying in 1987.
On 18 April 1944, he married Mary Evelyn Martin (19 May 1919 – 10 March 1978), a descendant of the
- PC(born 5 February 1945)
- Dame Mary Claire Hogg, DBE(born 15 January 1947)
- Frances Evelyn Hogg, OBE (born 11 November 1949)
- James Richard Martin Hogg (born 1951)
- Katherine Amelia Hogg (born 18 October 1962)
Hailsham inherited Carter's Corner Place, a 17th-century house with wide views over the Pevensey marshes and the English Channel, from his father in 1950, and practised farming there for more than a decade. In 1963 he sold the property because of the cost and because his wife found the upkeep too much of a strain, but he continued to visit it thereafter.[3]
After a happy marriage of 34 years, Mary was killed in front of her husband in a horse-riding accident during a visit to
On 1 March 1986, Hailsham married Deirdre Margaret Shannon Aft (1928/9–1998), a former secretary in his chambers. She was the daughter of Peter Shannon, a doctor. She cared for him in his old age, but predeceased him in 1998.[3]
Personality and disability
Hailsham retained some of the manner of a clever schoolboy – likeable, irritating and untidy – throughout his life. He was in the habit of reciting long passages of Ancient Greek verse at inappropriate moments in conversations.[3]
As a young man Hailsham was a keen mountain-climber, and broke both his ankles while climbing the
Death and succession
Hailsham died from
Like his father and other members of the family, he was buried in the churchyard at All Saints, Herstmonceux, Sussex.[3]
Hailsham's wealth at death was valued for probate at £4,618,511 (around £7.5m at 2018 prices).[3][18]
Assessment and legacy
S. M. Cretney argues that “Hailsham was on any assessment one of the outstanding personalities of 20th-century British politics. None of his contemporaries combined so brilliant and well-trained an intellect with a capacity for oratory that enjoyed such wide appeal. His most notable success may well have been his role in reviving the Conservative Party's fortunes in the 1950s … even so, Hailsham's actual achievements in politics arguably failed to reflect his remarkable intellectual power and oratorical skills" and that given his "emotional and temperamental volatility and even instability ... it is difficult to make any rational estimate of quite what a Hailsham administration would have achieved” had he become Prime Minister in 1963.[3]
In
Writings
This article is part of a series on |
Conservatism in the United Kingdom |
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Hogg's 1945 book The Left Was Never Right was a fierce response to two books in Victor Gollancz's "Victory Books" series, Guilty Men by Frank Owen, Michael Foot, and Peter Howard, and Your M.P. by Tom Wintringham, both published during the war and largely attempting to discredit Tory MPs as appeasers and war profiteers. The Wintringham volume had been republished in the lead up to the 1945 general election, widely acknowledged at the time as a major factor in shifting public opinion away from the Conservative party. Hogg's book sought to contrast Wintringham's statistics on appeasement with patriotic statistics of his own, maintaining that Labour MPs had been lacking in their wartime duties.
Perhaps his most important book, the Penguin paperback The Case for Conservatism, was a similar response to Labour Marches On by
Hailsham was also known for his writings on faith and belief. In 1975 he published his spiritual autobiography The Door Wherein I Went, which included a brief chapter of Christian apologetics, using legal arguments concerning the evidence for the life of Jesus. The book included a particularly moving passage about suicide; when he was a young man his half-brother Edward Marjoribanks had taken his own life, and the experience left Hailsham with a deep conviction that suicide is always wrong.
His writings on Christianity have been the subject of discussion in the writings of
Select bibliography
- One Year's Work. London: Hutchinson, The National Book Association. 1944 (As Quintin Hogg.)
- The Times We Live In. London: Signpost Press, 1944. (As Quintin Hogg.)
- The Left Was Never Right. London: Faber and Faber, 1945. (As Quintin Hogg.)
- The Purpose of Parliament. London: Blanford Press, 1946. (As Quintin Hogg.)
- The Case for Conservatism. Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1947. (As Quintin Hogg.) Revised, updated, and republished as The Conservative Case, 1959. (As Viscount Hailsham.)
- The Iron Curtain, Fifteen Years After. With a Reprint of [Winston Churchill’s] 'The Sinews of Peace' (1946). The John Findley Green Foundation Lectures. Fulton, Missouri: Westminster College, 1961. New York: River Club, 1964. (As Viscount Hailsham.)
- Science and Government. The Fawley Foundation Lectures, 8. Southampton: University of Southampton, 1961. OCLC Number: 962124; OCoLC 594963091. (As Quintin Hogg, Baron Hailsham of St Marylebone.)
- Science and Politics. London: Faber and Faber, 1963. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1974. ISBN 9780837172279. (As Quintin Hogg, Baron Hailsham of St Marylebone.)
- The Devil's Own Song and Other Verses. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1968. ISBN 9780340109793. (As Quintin Hogg.)
- New Charter: Some Proposals for Constitutional Reform. London: Conservative Political Centre, 1969. CPC Series No. 430.
- The Acceptable Face of Western Civilisation. London: Conservative Political Centre, 1973. CPC Series No. 535. ISBN 9780850705317.
- The Door Wherein I Went. London: Collins, 1975. ISBN 9780002161527. (As Lord Hailsham.)
- Elective Dictatorship. The Richard Dimbleby Lectures. London: British Broadcasting Corporation, 1976. ISBN 9780563172543. (As Lord Hailsham.)
- The Dilemma of Democracy: Diagnosis and Prescription. London: Collins, 1979. ISBN 9780002118606. (As Lord Hailsham.)
- A Sparrow's Flight: The Memoirs of Lord Hailsham of St Marylebone. London: William Collins & Sons Ltd, 1991. ISBN 9780002155458. (As Lord Hailsham.)
- On the Constitution. London: HarperCollins, 1992. ISBN 9780002159982. (As Lord Hailsham.)
- Values: Collapse and Cure. London: HarperCollins, 1994. ISBN 9780002553902. (As Lord Hailsham.)
Further reading
Rees, J. (John) Tudor, and Harley V. Usill, editors. They Stand Apart: A Critical Survey of the Problems of Homosexuality. London: William Heinemann, Ltd., 1955. A collection of essays by multiple authors.
Lewis, Geoffrey. Lord Hailsham: A Life. London: Jonathan Cape Ltd., 1997.
Utley, T. E. (Thomas Edwin). Not Guilty: The Conservative Reply. A Vindication of Government Policy. "Foreword by the Rt. Hon. Viscount Hailsham, Q.C." London: MacGibbon & Kee, 1957. OCLC Number: 1412752. A defence of the policies of then-Prime Minister Anthony Eden.
Clifford, Ross. Leading Lawyers' Case for the Resurrection. Edmonton, Alberta: Canadian Institute for Law, Theology, and Public Policy, 1996.
Coat of Arms
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References
- ^ Disclaimed under Peerage Act 1963
- .
- ^ doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/76372. (Subscription or UK public library membershiprequired.)
- ^ Archived at Ghostarchive and the Wayback Machine: "President Reagan's Address to British Parliament, June 8, 1982". YouTube.
- ^ "Summary of Individual | Legacies of British Slave-ownership". Archived from the original on 15 June 2020.
- ^ "No. 39827". The London Gazette. 17 April 1953. p. 2119.
- OL 19645005M, 1857023552
- ISBN 9781861057365.
Hailsham sexual continence requires no more than a sense of the ridiculous.
- ^ MacFarquhar, Roderick (1997). The Origins of the Cultural Revolution- 3. The Coming of the Cataclysm 1961-1966. p. 358.
- ^ Stone-Lee, Ollie (2 October 2005). "Return to conference nightmare?". BBC News Online. Archived from the original on 15 December 2013. Retrieved 2 September 2012.
- ^ "BBC ON THIS DAY - 11 - 1967: Harold Wilson wins Moving apology". news.bbc.co.uk. 11 October 1967. Retrieved 19 May 2017.
- ^ Thatcher's father had been a grocer in Grantham.
- ^ "No. 46254". The London Gazette (Supplement). 2 April 1974. p. 4396.
- ^ "No. 51318". The London Gazette. 26 April 1988. p. 4957.
- ^ Hailsham 1991, pp. 397–404.
- ^ a b Hailsham, 1990, pp. 60, 391.
- ^ Hailsham 1991, photo next to p. 353.
- ^ Compute the Relative Value of a U.K. Pound
- ^ Chesshyre, Hubert (1996). The Friends of St. George's & Descendants of the Knights of the Garter Annual Review 1996/97. Vol. VII. p. 326.
External links
- Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Lord Hailsham of St Marylebone
- The Papers of Lord Hailsham held at the Churchill Archives Centre
- Obituary – Lord Hailsham of St Marylebone from The Independent.
- Newspaper clippings about Quintin Hogg, Baron Hailsham of St Marylebone in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBW
- Quintin Hogg on the UK Parliament website