Patrick George Thomas Buchan-Hepburn, 1st Baron Hailes, GBE, CH (2 April 1901 – 5 November 1974),[1] was a British Conservative politician and the only Governor-General of the short-lived West Indies Federation, from 3 January 1958, to 31 May 1962, when the country was disbanded.
Contents |
Buchan-Hepburn was the youngest son of Sir Archibald Buchan-Hepburn, 4th Baronet (see Buchan-Hepburn Baronets), and his wife Edith Agnes (née Karslake), and was educated at Harrow and Trinity College, Cambridge.[2]
Buchan-Hepburn was a personal secretary to Winston Churchill and a London County Councillor before being elected at a by-election in February 1931 as the Member of Parliament (MP) for the East Toxteth division of Liverpool.[1][3] (He had stood unsuccessfully in Wolverhampton East at the 1929 general election.[4]) In 1939 he was appointed a Parliamentary Whip for the Conservative Party and a Lord of the Treasury. During World War II he served in the military, but returned to politics in 1945, serving as Deputy Whip to 1948 and then as Chief Whip. His East Toxteth constituency was abolished in boundary changes for the 1950 general election, when he was elected for the newly-created Beckenham constituency in Kent.[5] He was Government Chief Whip and Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury from 1951 to 1955. In 1957 he raised to the peerage as Baron Hailes, of Prestonkirk in the County of East Lothian.[6]
With the formation of the West Indies Federation in response to complaints against British colonialism in the Caribbean, Lord Hailes was appointed the country's first Governor-General and relocated to Port of Spain on the island of Trinidad. Four years later, the new state was dissolved and he returned to England, where he served as Chairman of the Historic Buildings Council (a predecessor body of English Heritage, formally known as the Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission for England).
Buchan-Hepburn married Diana Mary, daughter of Brigadier-General the Hon. Charles Lambton, in 1945. They had no children. He died in November 1974, aged 73, when the barony became extinct.[2]
| Parliament of the United Kingdom | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Henry Mond |
Member of Parliament for East Toxteth 1931–1950 |
Constituency abolished |
| New constituency | Member of Parliament for Beckenham 1950–1957 |
Succeeded by Philip Goodhart |
| Political offices | ||
| Preceded by William Whiteley |
Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury 1951–1955 |
Succeeded by Edward Heath |
| Peerage of the United Kingdom | ||
| New creation | Baron Hailes 1957–1974 |
Extinct |