Timothy Bligh

Sir Timothy James Bligh,

Early life

Bligh was born on 2 September 1918,

In 1964 Bligh left the government's service to become a director of the media chain the Thomson Organisation, and became its assistant managing director in 1966. He was briefly active in Conservative politics, as an alderman on the Greater London Council from 1967.^[1]

Profumo affair

As the prime minister's principal private secretary, Bligh was peripherally involved in the Profumo affair of 1963, a scandal which brought about the resignation of John Profumo as Secretary of State for War and destabilised the government. Before the affair broke, Bligh had been advised of the possibility that Profumo had compromised national security through a sexual affair with a 19-year-old showgirl, Christine Keeler, who was a known associate of the society osteopath Stephen Ward, a suspected Soviet sympathiser. Bligh interviewed Profumo, who denied any wrongdoing but asked if he should resign to avoid embarrassing the government. He was advised that he should not.^[3] Later, when the affair was unravelling, Bligh met Ward, who by then, at the Home Office's instigation, was under police investigation regarding possible vice charges. Ward asked Bligh if there was anything that could be done to halt the investigation, which was proving ruinous to his practice. Bligh took no action.^[4] In June 1963 when the scandal reached its climax, Macmillan being absent in Scotland it was to Bligh that Profumo first confessed his guilt, and it was Bligh who transmitted the contents of Profumo's resignation letter to the prime minister.^[5]

Private life

Bligh married Ruth Pamela Robertson in 1945; there were two sons and one daughter from the marriage. In the

Sources

• Davenport-Hines, Richard (2013). An English Affair: Sex, Class and Power in the Age of Profumo. London: William Collins.
  ISBN 978-0-00-743585-2
  .
• ISBN 0-224-02347-0
  .