Quintin Hogg, Baron Hailsham of St Marylebone
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Quintin McGarel Hogg, Baron Hailsham of St Marylebone, KG, CH, PC, QC (9 October 1907 – 12 October 2001), formerly 2nd Viscount Hailsham (1950–1963), was a British judge and Conservative politician.
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[edit] Background
Born in London, Hogg was the son of Douglas Hogg, 1st Viscount Hailsham, who was Lord Chancellor under Stanley Baldwin and grandson of another Quintin Hogg, a merchant and philanthropist. He attended Eton College and Christ Church, Oxford, and embarked on an academic career, becoming a Fellow of All Souls in 1931. Although he had originally read classics, he had won his prize fellowship in law, and was called to the bar in 1932. His hobby was mountain-climbing, and his ankles were broken so many times that in later life he was only able to walk with two sticks.
[edit] Politics & World War Two
In 1938, Hogg was chosen as a candidate for Parliament in the Oxford by-election. This election took place shortly after the Munich Agreement and the Labour candidate Patrick Gordon-Walker was persuaded to step down to allow a unified challenge to the Conservatives; A.D. Lindsay, the Master of Balliol College fought as an 'Independent Progressive' candidate. Hogg enthusiastically defended the appeasement policy of the Government, and despite support from undergraduates (most of whom were unable to vote), Lindsay could not beat him.
Despite his background Hogg voted against Neville Chamberlain in the Norway debate of May 1940, and supported Winston Churchill. He served briefly in the desert campaign as a platoon commander during World War II, but at age 34 he was by then elderly for his rank (captain; his commanding officer had been his contemporary at Eton, and after the CO and second-in-command Hogg was the oldest officer in the battalion) but by his own account lacked the military experience to command larger units. He spent time on the staff of General "Jumbo" Wilson before leaving the army with the rank of major. Hogg wrote a response to the succession of left-wing books such as Guilty Men called The Left was never Right in the run-up to the 1945 election.
[edit] Tory Minister
Hogg's father died in 1950 and he had to move to the House of Lords as 2nd Viscount Hailsham. Believing his political career to be over he concentrated on the Bar for some years, becoming Head of his Chambers, and did not at first hold office when the Conservatives returned to power in 1951. He later became First Lord of the Admiralty under Eden in 1956, and under Macmillan served as Chairman of the Party and campaign organiser for the 1959 general election. He was Leader of the House of Lords when Harold Macmillan, the Prime Minister, announced his sudden resignation 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. Lord 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 byelection to get back into the House of Commons. His publicity-seeking antics at the Party Conference (eg. feeding his newborn baby in public, and allowing his supporters to distribute "Q" (for Quintin) badges) were considered vulgar at the time, so in the end Macmillan did not encourage the party grandees to choose him as his successor. He failed to win the leadership but did win St Marylebone, his father's old constituency.
Hogg was a rumbustious campaigner who was known for his robust rhetoric and theatrical gestures. He was usually on good form in dealing with hecklers, a valuable skill in the 1960s, and was prominent in the 1964 general election. At one point, when a Labour Party supporter waved a Harold Wilson placard in front of him, Hogg attacked it with his walking stick.
He served in the shadow cabinet during the Wilson Government, and when Edward Heath won the 1970 general election he received a life peerage as Baron Hailsham of St Marylebone, of Hurstmonceaux in the County of Sussex and became Lord Chancellor. He was the first person returning 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 much criticized, although he later redeemed himself in the eyes of the profession by appointing Lord Lane to succeed Widgery.
[edit] Retirement and death
Lord Hailsham of St Marylebone announced his retirement after the end of the Heath government. He coined the term 'elective dictatorship' in 1976, later writing a detailed exposition called The Dilemma of Democracy. However, when his second wife Mary was killed in a riding accident in 1978 in Sydney, he decided to return to active politics, and served again as Lord Chancellor from 1979 to 1987 under Margaret Thatcher.
Lord Hailsham of St Marylebone was appointed a Companion of Honour in 1975 and became a Knight of the Garter in 1988. On his death the viscountcy was inherited by his son Douglas Hogg MP. As a result of the House of Lords Act 1999, which removed the automatic link between peerages and the right to sit in the House of Lords, the 3rd Viscount has not had to disclaim the title in order to continue to sit as an MP.
[edit] Writings and life
Lord Hailsham was also known for his writings on faith and belief. In 1975 he had published his spiritual autobiography The Door Wherein I Went, which included a brief chapter in Christian apologetics using legal arguments concerning the evidences for the life of Christ. His legal apologetic has been the subject of discussion in the writings of Ross Clifford. Lord Hailsham revisited themes of faith in his memoirs A Sparrow's Flight, and the book's title alluded to remarks about sparrows and faith recorded in Bede's Ecclesiastical History and the words of Christ in the gospel of Matthew.
Lord Hailsham was thrice married. His first marriage to Natalie Sullivan lasted around ten years and ended in divorce - he returned from the war to find her, as he later put it, "not alone". His second marriage was to Mary Evelyn Martin and lasted thirty-four years until her accidental death. He remarried in 1986.
[edit] Autobiographies
- The Door Wherein I Went (London: Collins, 1975).
- A Sparrow's Flight: Memoirs (London: HarperCollins, 1990).
[edit] Discussion of Lord Hailsham's Faith
- Ross Clifford, Leading Lawyers Case for the Resurrection (Alberta: Canadian Institute for Law, Theology and Public Policy, 1996).
[edit] Titles from birth to death
- Quintin Hogg, Esq (1907–1929)
- The Hon. Quintin Hogg (1929–1938)
- The Hon. Quintin Hogg, MP (1938–1950)
- The Rt Hon. The Viscount Hailsham (1950–1953)
- The Rt Hon. The Viscount Hailsham, QC (1953–1956)
- The Rt Hon. The Viscount Hailsham, PC, QC (1956–1963)
- The Rt Hon. Quintin Hogg, QC, MP (1963–1970)
- The Rt Hon. The Lord Hailsham of St Marylebone, PC, QC (1970–1975)
- The Rt Hon. The Lord Hailsham of St Marylebone, CH, PC, QC (1975–1988)
- The Rt Hon. The Lord Hailsham of St Marylebone, KG, CH, PC, QC (1988–2001)
[edit] External links
Categories: Conservative MPs (UK) | Lord Chancellors of Great Britain | Members of the United Kingdom Parliament from English constituencies | Lord Presidents of the Council | Lords Privy Seal | British Secretaries of State | Viscounts in the Peerage of the United Kingdom | Knights of the Garter | Presidents of the Oxford Union | Members of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom | Old Etonians | Life peers | Companions of Honour | Former students of Christ Church, Oxford | Fellows of the Royal Society | Fellows of All Souls College, Oxford | People associated with the University of Buckingham | English memoirists | 1907 births | 2001 deaths
