Anthony Stodart

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James Anthony Stodart, Baron Stodart of Leaston (6 June 1916 - 31 May 2003) was a Scottish Tory politician.

The son of a colonel in the Indian medical service, he took over the family farm at Kingston, North Berwick, East Lothian, after his father died when he was just 18.

Eventually he farmed more than 800 acres at Leaston, near Humbie, East Lothian.

Although he was an active Unionist in his youth, he fell out with the party and joined the Liberal Party, standing as their candidate in Berwick and East Lothian in 1950.

By the following year, he had returned to the Tory fold and was Unionist candidate for Midlothian and Peebles in 1951 and Midlothian in 1955 before moving on to Edinburgh West in 1959. He was MP for Edinburgh West from 1959 until 1974, before retiring and being succeeded by fellow Tory Lord James Douglas-Hamilton.

He served as a junior Scottish Office Minister under Sir Alec Douglas-Home in 1963 and 1964, and at the Ministry of Agriculture in Edward Heath’s government, from 1970 to 1974.

After leaving the Commons, he became chairman of the Agriculture Credit Corporation from 1975 to 1987 and chaired an inquiry into Scottish local government in 1980. He was created a life peer as Baron Stodart of Leaston, of Humble in the District of East Lothian in 1981.

His wife Hazel died in 1995. They had no children.