Elspeth Campbell

Elspeth Mary Campbell, Baroness Campbell of Pittenweem (born January 1940) is the wife of the former Liberal Democrat leader Sir Menzies Campbell.

Biography

Elspeth Urquhart was born in New Delhi, India, one of four children of Major-General Roy Urquhart and his wife Pamela. She lived in Devon with her great grandmother and, after the Second World War she accompanied the family to Kuala Lumpur when her father was posted to British Malaya during the Malayan Emergency. This was followed by two years in Austria before she was sent to a convent school in Devon. There she proved to be an able student, earning A levels that would enable her admission to Oxford, but her father vetoed this idea and she was instead sent to a finishing school. She later worked at the Conservative Party's London offices.

On 13 October 1962, Urquhart married Canadian-born Sir Philip Grant-Suttie, 8th Baronet. They had one son, and were divorced in 1969. It was during this divorce that she was introduced to Menzies Campbell by her barrister, future Conservative Member of Parliament Sir Nicholas Fairbairn. She married Campbell in June 1970 and this marriage is childless.

Lady Campbell is known for her strong personality, and is believed to have persuaded her husband to stand in the 2006 Liberal Democrat leadership election, in which he was eventually victorious.^[1]

Lady Campbell is well known for hosting grand dinner parties. She is a fan of Coronation Street and wrote a thesis on the series for an Open University degree.^[2]

Titles from birth

• Miss Elspeth Mary Urquhart (1940–1962)
• The Lady Grant-Suttie (1962–1969)
• Elspeth, Lady Grant-Suttie (1969–1970)
• Mrs Menzies Campbell (1970–2004)
• The Honourable Lady Campbell (2004–2015)
• The Right Honourable Baroness Campbell of Pittenweem (2015 to present)^[3]

Notes

References

• Where there's smoke, there's Elspeth, The Sunday Times, 15 January 2006
• Treat her like a lady, Scottish Field, 16 August 2004