| Robert Boothby | |
|---|---|
Portrait by Allan Warren |
|
| Born | 12 February 1900 |
| Died | 16 July 1986 (aged 86) |
| Alma mater | Eton College Magdalen College, Oxford |
| Title | Baron Boothby |
| Term | 22 August 1958 - 16 July 1986 (27 years, 328 days) |
| Spouse | Diana Cavendish Wanda Sanna |
| Parents | Robert Tuite Boothby Mabel Lancaster |
Robert John Graham Boothby, Baron Boothby, KBE (also known as Bob Boothby, 12 February 1900 – 16 July 1986) was a controversial British Conservative politician.
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The only son of Sir Robert Tuite Boothby, KBE, of Edinburgh and a cousin of Rosalind Kennedy, mother of the broadcaster Sir Ludovic Kennedy, Boothby was educated at Eton College and Magdalen College, Oxford. He became a partner in a firm of stockbrokers.
He was an unsuccessful parliamentary candidate for Orkney and Shetland in 1923 and was elected as Member of Parliament (MP) for East Aberdeenshire in 1924, holding the seat until 1958. He was Parliamentary Private Secretary to Chancellor of the Exchequer Winston Churchill from 1926 to 1929 and held junior ministerial office as Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food in 1940–41. He was later forced to resign his post and go to the back benches for not declaring an interest when asking a parliamentary question. During World War II, he joined the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, retiring with the rank of Flight Lieutenant.
Boothby advocated the UK's entry into the European Community (now the European Union) and was a British delegate to the Consultative Assembly of the Council of Europe from 1949 until 1957. He was a prominent commentator on public affairs on radio and television, often taking part in the long-running BBC radio programme Any Questions. He also advocated the virtues of herring as a food.[1]
He was Vice-Chairman of the Committee on Economic Affairs, 1952–56; Honorary President of the Scottish Chamber of Agriculture, 1934, Rector of the University of St Andrews, 1958–61; Chairman of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, 1961–63, and President, Anglo-Israel Association, 1962–75. He was awarded an Honorary LLD by St Andrews, 1959 and was made an Honorary Burgess of the Burghs of Peterhead, Fraserburgh, Turriff and Rosehearty. He was appointed an Officer of the Legion of Honour in 1950, a KBE in 1953.[2]
Boothby was raised to the peerage as a life peer with the title Baron Boothby, of Buchan and Rattray Head in the County of Aberdeen, on 22 August 1958.[3]
There is a blue plaque on his house in Eaton Square, London.
Boothby had a colourful, if reasonably discreet, private life, mainly because the press refused to print what they knew of him, or were prevented from doing so. Woodrow Wyatt – whose reliability has been questioned[4][5][6] – claimed after the death of Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother that she had confided to him in a 1991 interview that "The press knew all about it", referring to Boothby's affairs, and that she described him as "a bounder but not a cad".[7]
He was married twice: in 1935 to Diana Cavendish (marriage dissolved in 1937) and in 1967 to Wanda Sanna, a Sardinian woman, 33 years his junior. The writer and broadcaster Sir Ludovic Kennedy has asserted that Boothby fathered at least three children by the wives of other men[8] (two by one woman, one by another)."
From 1930 he had a long affair with Dorothy Macmillan, wife of the Conservative politician Harold Macmillan (who would serve as prime minister from 1957 until 1963). He was rumoured to be father of the youngest Macmillan daughter, Sarah, though Harold Macmillan's most recent biographer D. R. Thorpe discounts Boothby's paternity.[9] [10][7] This connection to Macmillan, via his wife, has been seen as one of the reasons why the police didn't investigate the death of Edward Cavendish, 10th Duke of Devonshire, who died in the presence of suspected serial killer Dr John Bodkin Adams.[7] The duke was Lady Dorothy's brother, and it is thought the police were wary of drawing press attention to her while she was being unfaithful.[7]
Boothby was a promiscuous bisexual,[7] in a time when male homosexual activity was a criminal offence. While an undergraduate at Magdalen College, Oxford, Boothby earned the nickname "the Palladium", because "he was twice nightly".[11] He later spoke about the role of a speculated homosexual relationship in the drowning of his friend Michael Llewelyn Davies (one of the models for Peter Pan) and fellow Oxonian Rupert Buxton.[12][13][14] He did not start to have physical relationships with women until the age of 25.[11] From 1954 he campaigned publicly for homosexual law reform.[15]
In 1963 Boothby began an illicit affair with East End cat burglar Leslie Holt (d. 1979), a younger man he met at a gambling club. Holt introduced him to the gangster Ronald Kray, the younger Kray twin, who supplied Boothby with young men and arranged orgies in Cedra Court, receiving personal favours from Boothby in return.[11] When Boothby's underworld associations came to the attention of the Sunday Express, the Conservative-supporting paper opted not to publish the damaging story.[16][17] The matter was eventually reported in 1964 in the Labour-supporting Sunday Mirror tabloid, and the parties subsequently named by the German magazine Stern.[18]
Boothby denied the story and threatened to sue the Mirror, and because his close homosexual friend, Tom Driberg, a senior Labour MP, was also involved in the criminal ring, neither of the major political parties had an interest in publicity, and the paper's owner, Cecil King, came under pressure from the Labour leadership to drop the matter, to protect Driberg.[11] The Mirror backed down, sacked its editor, apologised, and paid Boothby £40,000 in an out-of-court settlement. Consequently other newspapers became less willing to cover the Krays' criminal activities, which continued unchecked for three more years.[11] The police investigation received no support from Scotland Yard, while Boothby embarrassed his fellow peers by campaigning on behalf of the Krays in the Lords, until their increasing violence made association impossible.[11] It has been claimed that journalists who investigated Boothby were subjected to legal threats and break-ins, and that much of this suppression was directed by Arnold Goodman.[19]
After his death in Westminster aged 86, Boothby's ashes were scattered at Rattray Head near Crimond, Aberdeenshire.
| Parliament of the United Kingdom | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Frederick Martin |
Member of Parliament for Aberdeen and Kincardine East 1924–1950 |
Constituency abolished |
| New constituency | Member of Parliament for Aberdeenshire Eastern 1950–1958 |
Succeeded by Patrick Wolrige-Gordon |
| Academic offices | ||
| Preceded by The Viscount Kilmuir |
Rector of the University of St Andrews 1958–1961 |
Succeeded by C. P. Snow |