James Stuart, 1st Viscount Stuart of Findhorn

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James Gray Stuart, 1st Viscount Stuart of Findhorn CH MVO MC and Bar PC (9 February 1897 – 20 February 1971) was a Scottish Tory politician.

Born in Edinburgh, Stuart was the son of Morton Gray Stuart, 17th Earl of Moray, and Edith Douglas Palmer.

Stuart was commissioned into the Royal Scots (Special Reserve) and served in the First World War, reaching the rank of Captain and winning the Military Cross and Bar.

In 1923, he married Lady Rachel Cavendish, daughter of the 9th Duke of Devonshire (and sister of Dorothy Cavendish, wife of Harold Macmillan). He had earlier been noted as a suitor of Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon.

From 1923 to 1959 he was Member of Parliament for Moray and Nairn, succeeded by Gordon Campbell. Stuart was made a Privy Councillor in 1939. He was Tory Chief Whip from 1941 to 1948, and joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury from 1941 to 1945. He was also Chairman of the Scottish Unionist Party from 1950 to 1962.

Stuart was Secretary of State for Scotland from October 1951 until January 1957 in the governments of Winston Churchill and Anthony Eden. He was appointed a Companion of Honour in 1957. On 20 November 1959 he was elevated to the peerage as Viscount Stuart of Findhorn, of Findhorn in the County of Moray.

[edit] Footnotes

• Torrance, David, The Scottish Secretaries (Birlinn 2006)
• Stuart, James; Viscount Stuart of Findhorn. Within the Fringe: An Autobiography