Lord Hailsham, a member of British governments for nearly half a century and one of the few survivors of Winston Churchill's last war-time administration, has died aged 94, his son said yesterday.
He served under six prime ministers in Conservative governments, the last being Margaret Thatcher in the last 1980s, and just missed becoming prime minister himself in the 1960s. The Tory peer, born Quintin McGarel Hogg, died at his London home on Friday after a long illness. "He had a very distinguished life. This is the end of a chapter, and it is very sad," his son, Mr Douglas Hogg, said.
Lord Hailsham was a long-serving Lord Chancellor. By profession a lawyer, he was also, at various times, a soldier and Conservative party chairman.
Outspoken and flamboyant, he was educated at Eton and Oxford and first entered parliament in 1938 as MP for Oxford. He was wounded during the second World War after enlisting as a rifleman, and was briefly a minister in the 1945 caretaker government.
His father died in 1950, passing the inherited title on to his son who was then forced to give up his seat in the Commons. In 1955, however, he returned to the cabinet as First Lord of the Admiralty, just in time for the Suez crisis.
When the Conservative government fell after the Suez debacle, Lord Hailsham was appointed party chairman. It was one of his greatest achievements, leading the Tories to victory two years later with a 100-seat majority.
Hailsham just missed becoming prime minister in l963 when Harold Macmillan, resigning in ill-health after the Profumo scandal, nominated him as heir. Lord Hailsham renounced his peerage, only to find Macmillan had changed his mind in favour of Alec Douglas-Home in the face of opposition from other party members.
His first marriage to Natalie Antoinette Sullivan in 1932 ended in divorce after 10 years. His second marriage lasted 34 years until his wife Mary died in Australia in 1978; they had two sons and three daughters. He married his third wife, his former secretary, Deirdre Shannon, in 1986; she died in 1998.