Ian Gilmour, Baron Gilmour of Craigmillar
Ian Hedworth John Little Gilmour, Baron Gilmour of Craigmillar, PC (8 July 1926 – 21 September 2007) was a Conservative Party politician in the United Kingdom. He was styled Sir Ian Gilmour, 3rd Baronet from 1977, having succeeded to his father's baronetcy, until he became a life peer in 1992. He was Secretary of State for Defence in 1974, in the government of Edward Heath. In the government of Margaret Thatcher, he was Lord Privy Seal from 1979 to 1981.
For other people named Ian Gilmour, see Ian Gilmour (disambiguation).
The Lord Gilmour of Craigmillar
Constituency abolished
Constituency created
8 July 1926
London, England
21 September 2007 (aged 81)
London, England
Conservative and National Liberal (before 1964)
Conservative (before 1999)
Pro-Euro Conservative (1999–2001)
Liberal Democrats (after 2001)
Tim Bouverie (grandson)
Early life[edit]
Gilmour was born in London on 8 July 1926, the son of stockbroker Lieutenant Colonel Sir John Gilmour, 2nd Baronet, and his wife, Victoria, a granddaughter of the 5th Earl Cadogan.[1] His parents divorced in 1929, and his father married Mary, the eldest daughter of the 3rd Duke of Abercorn. The family had land in Scotland and he inherited a substantial estate and shares in Meux's Brewery from his grandfather, Admiral of the Fleet, the Hon. Sir Hedworth Meux.[2][3] They lived in the grounds of Syon Park in London, with a house in Tuscany.
Gilmour was educated at Eton College and read history at Balliol College, Oxford. He served with the Grenadier Guards from 1944 to 1947. He was called to the bar at Inner Temple in 1952 and was a tenant in the chambers of Quintin Hogg for two years.[3]
He bought The Spectator in 1954 and was its editor from 1954 to 1959. He sold The Spectator to the businessman Harold Creighton in 1967. The Daily Telegraph wrote that his editorship had livened up the magazine "publishing new writers such as Bernard Levin and Katharine Whitehorn and taking a strong liberal reforming stance on moral issues such as the death penalty, abortion and homosexuality; he also castigated Eden over Suez."[3] He had written an editorial denouncing the invasion of Suez as an "act of aggression".[4]
Writings[edit]
Gilmour was known for writing coherently from the One Nation perspective of the Conservative Party, in opposition to Thatcherism; in particular in his books Dancing with Dogma (1992) and (with Mark Garnett) Whatever Happened to the Tories (1997), and in his critical articles in journals such as the London Review of Books.
His book, Inside Right (1977) is an introduction to conservative thought and thinkers. He also wrote the books The Body Politic (1969), Britain Can Work (1983), Riot, Risings and Revolution (1992), and The Making of the Poets: Byron and Shelley in Their Time (2002).[11]