Quintin Hogg

(b. London, 9 Oct. 1907; d. 12 Oct. 2001) British; Lord Chancellor 1970 – 4, 1979 – 87; Viscount 1953 – 63, Baron (life peer) 1970 Hogg inherited his father's love of the law and a family trait of having slightly deformed hands: he was born with a sixth digit (which was quickly removed) attached to the thumb on his right hand. He was educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford, and was destined for a career in the law and politics, following in the footsteps of his father. He was called to the bar in 1932 and practised as a barrister until elected to parliament in a celebrated by-election in 1938, winning Oxford City as a pro-Chamberlain Conservative. After wartime service in the Rifle Brigade, he served briefly as Under-Secretary for Air in Churchill's 1945 caretaker government. Seen as a progressive Conservative, he was prominent in the movement to modernize the party and penned an influential book, The Case for Conservatism, published by Penguin in 1947.

In 1953 his father died and he moved to the House of Lords as the 2nd Viscount Hailsham, a move he tried to resist, but he was unable to persuade the Prime Minister to change the law. In 1956 he was appointed First Lord of the Admiralty and joined the Cabinet a year later as Minister for Education. In 1959, he was appointed Minister for Science and Technology. He served at the same time as Lord President of the Council (1957 – 9, 1960 – 4) and Lord Privy Seal (1960 – 1), and as deputy leader (1957 – 1960) and leader (1960 – 3) of the House of Lords. He combined his ministerial duties with chairmanship of the Conservative Party from 1957 to 1959, his ebullience and energy proving popular with party activists.

When Macmillan announced his resignation as Prime Minister in 1963, Hailsham used the occasion of the party conference to announce his renunciation of his peerage — made possible by the passage of the 1963 Peerages Act — and in effect campaign publicly for the party leadership. His campaigning apparently resulted in Macmillan withdrawing support from him.

Though returned to the House of Commons in 1963 as member for St Marylebone, his service in the House was to prove relatively short-lived. In 1970, Edward Heath appointed him to the post once held by his father — that of Lord Chancellor — and he returned to the House of Lords with a life peerage as Lord Hailsham of St Marylebone. He was to serve in the office not only for the lifetime of the Heath government (1970 – 4) but also for two full parliaments of the Thatcher premiership (1979 – 87). He was 80 years of age when he relinquished office. Though responsible for a number of reforms, he was essentially in the mould of a traditionalist Lord Chancellor, defending most of the practices of the bar and the judicial process. Unusually for modern Lords Chancellor, he chose to sit on occasion to hear appeals. Following his retirement, he continued to attend the House of Lords on a regular basis.

His willingness to demonstrate his brilliance, an unwillingness to suffer fools gladly, and a volatile temper did not always commend him to others. Few, though, have doubted his outstanding intellectual capacity. His contribution to politics has combined the practical with the reflective. His writings in his early political life provided intellectual inspiration to a new generation of Conservatives and his 1976 Dimbleby Lecture, advocating the case (which he later refuted) for a written constitution, provided a new phrase to the lexicon of British politics when he warned of the possibility of an "elective dictatorship".