Jo Grimond

Joseph "Jo" Grimond, Baron Grimond CH, CBE, PC (29 July 1913 – 24 October 1993) was a British politician, leader of the Liberal Party from 1956 to 1967 and again briefly in 1976.

Early life

Grimond was born in St Andrews in Fife and was educated at Eton College and Balliol College, Oxford. He became a barrister, and in 1938 married Laura Bonham Carter, a granddaughter of former Prime Minister Herbert Henry Asquith, and aunt to actress Helena Bonham Carter.

Member of Parliament

After service in World War II, he entered Parliament in the 1950 general election as Liberal Member of Parliament for Orkney and Shetland, in Scotland, continuing to represent the constituency until he retired from politics in 1983. He was a life-long champion of Scottish devolution, and although he was often wary of the bureaucracy of the European Economic Community (EEC), was an early advocate of the EEC.

Leader of the Liberal Party

Grimond led the party through a difficult period in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The party he inherited commanded barely 2.5% of the vote. A man of considerable personal charm, charisma, and intelligence he was widely respected and inspired trust, and by the end of his tenure the Liberal party was once more a mainstream party. It was during his leadership that the first post-war Liberal revival took place: under Grimond the Liberals doubled their seats and won historic by-elections at Torrington in 1958, Orpington in 1962, and Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles in 1965. In 1967, he made way for a younger, more dynamic leader, Jeremy Thorpe. In 1976, when Thorpe was forced to resign because of a scandal, Grimond stepped in as caretaker leader until the election of a replacement, David Steel.

Among other posts, Grimond was a barrister and publisher in the 1930s, an army major during World War II, Secretary of the National Trust for Scotland from 1947 to 1949, and held the Rectorships of the University of Edinburgh and the University of Aberdeen and the Chancellorship of the University of Kent at Canterbury (elected in 1970). His many books include The Liberal Future (1959, credited with reinvigorating radical liberalism as a coherent modern ideology), The Liberal Challenge (1963), and Memoirs (1979).

Retirement and death

On leaving parliament, he was created a life peer as Baron Grimond, of Firth in the County of Orkney. He remained devoted to his former parliamentary constituency, and was buried on the Orkney Islands.

Personal life

Jo Grimond was survived by his wife Laura. Laura was the wife then widow of a Life Peer, the sister of another Life Peer, the daughter of a Life Peeress, and the great-granddaughter of a hereditary peer of first creation.

He had four children:

• Grizelda "Gelda" Grimond (born 1942), who had a daughter by the film and stage director Tony Richardson
• John Grimond, a foreign editor of The Economist who in 1973 married Kate Fleming (b. 1946), elder daughter of the writer Peter Fleming and actress Celia Johnson, and has three children with her. He is the main author of The Economist's style book.^[1]
• Magnus Grimond, journalist and financial correspondent, married to the travel author Laura Grimond (née Raison).
• Andrew Grimond (born 1939), a sub-editor of The Scotsman, lived in Edinburgh until his suicide at the age of 26.

References

Writings

• Jo Grimond, The Liberal Future (Faber and Faber, London, 1959)
• __________, The Liberal Challenge (Hollis and Carter, London, 1963)
• __________, The Common Welfare (Temple Smith, London, 1978)
• __________, Memoirs (Heinemann, London, 1979)
• __________, A Personal Manifesto (Martin Robertson, Oxford, 1983)
• __________, The St. Andrews of Jo Grimond (Alan Sutton, St. Andrew's, 1992)
• Jo Grimond and Brian Nevel, The Referendum (Rex Collings, London, 1975)

Grimond was also a prolific writer of pamphlets - see the McManus biography (below) for a complete list of publications.

Further reading

• Peter Barberis, Liberal Lion: Jo Grimond, A Political Life (I.B. Taurus, London, 2005)
• Michael McManus, Jo Grimond: Towards the Sound of Gunfire (Birlinn, Edinburgh, 2001)

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Jo Grimond

• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Jo Grimond
• Jo Grimond (Lord Grimond) 1913–93 biography from the Liberal Democrat History Group