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.

Contents 1 Background 2 Politics and World War Two 3 Tory minister 4 Retirement and death 5 Writings 6 Private Life 7 Autobiographies 8 Discussion of Lord Hailsham's faith 9 Titles from birth to death 10 External links

[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 won his prize fellowship in law and was called to the bar in 1932. His favourite hobby was mountain-climbing, and his ankles were broken so many times that in old age he was only able to walk with two canes.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Politics and 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. In the end Hogg defeated Lindsay.

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. His commanding officer had been his contemporary at Eton; after him and the second-in-command, Captain Hogg was the third-oldest officer in the battalion. After a knee wound in August 1941, which almost cost him his right leg, Hogg was deemed too old for further front-line service, and later served on the staff of General "Jumbo" Wilson before leaving the army with the rank of major. In the run-up to the 1945 election, Hogg wrote a response to the book Guilty Men, called The Left was never Right .

[edit] Tory minister

Hogg's father died in 1950 and the younger Hogg was forced 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 by-election and return to 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 senior party members to choose Hogg as his successor. Hogg failed to win the leadership bid but did win his father's old constituency of St Marylebone.

Hogg as a campaigner was known for his robust rhetoric and theatrical gestures. He was usually in 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 smacked it with his walking stick.

He served in the Conservative 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. Hogg was the first to return 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 criticized by his opponents, 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 in 1974. He coined the term 'elective dictatorship' in 1976, later writing a detailed exposition, 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 his title was inherited by his son Douglas Hogg. Due to the Labour government's House of Lords Act 1999, which removed the automatic link between hereditary peerages and the right to sit in the House of Lords, it was not necessary for the 3rd Viscount to disclaim his viscountcy to remain as a MP.

[edit] Writings

Lord Hailsham was also known for his writings on faith and belief. In 1975 he 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 writings on Christianity have 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.

[edit] Private Life

Lord Hailsham was thrice married, with his first marriage of ten years to Natalie Sullivan ending in divorce. Hogg returned from the war to find her, as he later put it in a television interview, "not alone"; she was in fact with de Gaulle's chef de cabinet Francois Coulet, with whom she was to spend the rest of her life. His second marriage to Mary Evelyn Martin lasted 34 years until her accidental death, in front of her husband's eys, in a horseriding accident. Hogg 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

Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by Robert Croft Bourne	Member of Parliament for Oxford 1938–1950	Succeeded by Henry Frederic Lawrence Turner
Preceded by William Wavell Wakefield	Member of Parliament for St Marylebone 1963–1970	Succeeded by Kenneth Baker
Political offices
Preceded by The Viscount Cilcennin	First Lord of the Admiralty 1956–1957	Succeeded by The Earl of Selkirk
Preceded by David Eccles	President of the Board of Education 1957	Succeeded by Geoffrey Lloyd
Preceded by Oliver Poole	Chairman of the Conservative Party 1957–1959	Succeeded by Rab Butler
Preceded by The Earl of Home	Lord President of the Council 1957–1959	Succeeded by The Earl of Home
Preceded by Rab Butler	Lord Privy Seal 1959–1960	Succeeded by Edward Heath
Preceded by The Earl of Home	Leader of the House of Lords 1960–1963	Succeeded by The Lord Carrington
Preceded by The Earl of Home	Lord President of the Council 1960–1964	Succeeded by Herbert Bowden
Preceded by —	Minister for Sport 1962–1964	Succeeded by Denis Howell
Preceded by —	Secretary of State for Education and Science 1964	Succeeded by Michael Stewart
Preceded by The Lord Gardiner	Lord Chancellor 1970–1974	Succeeded by The Lord Elwyn-Jones
Preceded by The Lord Elwyn-Jones	Lord Chancellor 1979–1987	Succeeded by The Lord Havers
Peerage of the United Kingdom
Preceded by Douglas Hogg	Viscount Hailsham 1950–1963 (Disclaimed)	Succeeded by Douglas Hogg