Grey Gowrie

The Right Honourable The Earl of Gowrie PC FRSL
Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
In office 11 September 1984 – 2 September 1985
Prime Minister	Margaret Thatcher
Preceded by	The Lord Cockfield
Succeeded by	Norman Tebbit
Minister of State for the Arts
In office 11 June 1983 – 2 September 1985
Prime Minister	Margaret Thatcher
Preceded by	Paul Channon
Succeeded by	Richard Luce
Personal details
Born	Alexander Patrick Greysteil Hore-Ruthven (1939-11-26)26 November 1939 Dublin, Ireland
Died	24 September 2021(2021-09-24) (aged 81) Wales
Political party	Conservative
Spouse(s)	Alexandra Bingley ​ ​ (m. 1962; div. 1973)​ Adelheid Gräfin von der Schulenburg ​ ​ (m. 1974)​
Children	1
Parent(s)	Patrick Hore-Ruthven Pamela Cooper
Alma mater	Eton College Balliol College, Oxford Harvard University

Alexander Patrick Greysteil Hore-Ruthven, 2nd Earl of Gowrie, PC, FRSL (26 November 1939 – 24 September 2021), usually known as Grey Gowrie, was an Irish-born British hereditary peer, politician, and businessman. Lord Gowrie was also the hereditary Clan Chief of Clan Ruthven in Scotland. He was educated at Eton and Oxford, and held posts in academia for a period, in the US and London, including time working with poet Robert Lowell and at Harvard.

Gowrie was a Conservative Party politician for some years, including a period in the British Cabinet. He held ministerial posts in the areas of employment and Northern Ireland, and was Minister of State for the Arts, as well as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, with responsibility for Civil Service reform. Offered a promotion to full Secretary of State, with responsibility for education across the UK, he turned it down, causing some scandal when he said that the salary of £33,000 was not enough to live on in London, despite being three times the average salary in the city. Previously an arts dealer, he moved to Sotheby's for a reputed salary of around £150,000, chairing parts of the art auction business. He later chaired the Arts Council of England (1994–1998).

He published several volumes of poetry, with a collected edition released in 2014, and a volume on the artist Derek Hill; he was also a contributing author for a book on British painting. He died at his home in Llanfechain, Powys, Wales, in September 2021, after a long illness.

Life

Early life and education

Alexander Patrick Greysteil Hore-Ruthven was born on 26 November 1939, in Dublin, Ireland, the elder son of Major the Hon. Patrick Hore-Ruthven and Pamela Margaret Fletcher. His father was the only surviving son of Alexander Hore-Ruthven, later the 1st Earl of Gowrie in its new creation and his wife Zara. He had one sibling, younger brother Malise Ruthven, later a writer. His paternal grandfather was a soldier and colonial official, his maternal grandfather an Anglican cleric, A.H. Fletcher. He was known as "Grey", short for his third forename, to most, and "Greysteil" to close friends.

His parents were both active in Cairo during the Second World War, his father, "Pat" to the family, a major in the Rifle Brigade and his mother working for the intelligence services; they left the young Grey with his maternal grandmother at Lough Derg in Ireland at the age of three months. His father was killed in action at Tripoli in 1942, while attached to the then-new SAS, at which point he became his paternal grandfather's heir apparent; his grandparents played an active role in his upbringing thereafter. When his grandfather, who had been the Governor-General of Australia, was created Earl of Gowrie in January 1945, Grey became known by the courtesy title Viscount Ruthven of Canberra.

On his mother's return to Ireland, they lived for a period in what she described as a dreary houses in Greystones, County Wicklow, then in a tower at Windsor Castle, where his paternal grandfather was deputy constable. He then returned to Ireland, living in Dublin and County Kildare, and at an estate his mother boughtm, Dunlewy at Poisoned Glen, Gaoth Dobhair, County Donegal in Ulster. His mother remarried in 1952, to her partner Major Derek Cooper. Hore-Ruthven was educated at Eton, where he contributed poetry, fiction and prose to school magazine Parade and was elected to the elite Eton Society, more commonly known as Pop.

Titles and university

The young Lord Ruthven of Canberra succeeded to the Earldom of Gowrie, named for the old Scottish area of Gowrie around Perth, on the death of his grandfather on 2 May 1955; at the same time he succeeded as the 2nd Viscount Ruthven of Canberra, and as the 2nd Baron Gowrie of Canberra and of Dirleton (in East Lothian). On 16 April 1956, he further succeeded his great-uncle (his grandfather's elder brother), the 2nd Baron Ruthven of Gowrie and 10th Lord Ruthven of Freeland, as the 3rd Baron Ruthven of Gowrie (the Scottish lordship of Ruthven of Freeland passed instead via the female line). He matriculated his coat of arms with the Lord Lyon King of Arms in 1959.

After Eton, Gowrie attended Balliol College, Oxford, and while there he succeeded Paul Foot as editor of Isis

Academic and art dealer

Gowrie worked for the Times Literary Supplement for a short time, and taught, meeting his future wife while working in a girls' school. After marriage, he moved to the US, working as a visiting lecturer at the State University of New York (SUNY) at Buffalo from 1963 to 1964, then tutoring at Harvard University from 1965 to 1968, while also working with poet Robert Lowell.

Gowrie returned from the US in 1969, as lecturer in English and American Literature at University College London; he also trained as an art dealer in Bond Street, working with Thomas Gibson Fine Art. Early deals included a portrait of Peter Lacey by Francis Bacon, which Gowrie offered first, at no commission, to the National Gallery of Ireland - when they rejected the work of "this disgraceful artist", he sold it to Elton John. He dealt in Old Masters, Picassos, and David Hockney at an early stage, and on one occasion sold a Jackson Pollack to the National Gallery in Washington for £2 million. He produced his first volume of poetry, A Postcard from Don Giovanni, in 1972; David Hockney produced a sketch of Gowrie for its front cover.

Political career

Gowrie became a member of the Conservative and Unionist Party and was appointed a Conservative whip in the House of Lords. In 1971 he represented the British Government on the Human Rights Committee of the United Nations. He joined the Conservative front bench under Ted Heath in 1972 as a Lord-in-waiting, a post he held until 1974. While the Conservatives were in opposition from 1974 to 1979, he was spokesperson on economic affairs. Gowrie was socially liberal but he has been described as an economic “dry” and an early convert to Thatcherite policies. Denis Healey, his Government opponent (Chancellor of the Exchequer 1974 to 1979), said of him “Grey is the only Conservative who understands monetarism”.

He later served under Margaret Thatcher, with his first appointment being Minister of State for Employment between 1979 and 1981, working for Jim Prior. He followed his senior minister to Northern Ireland, working as Minister of State at the Northern Ireland Office (NIO) from 1981 to 1983, during the period of IRA hunger strikes; he was noted as "expressing quiet admiration for what he saw as the dying men’s misguided courage". He was involved in the legalisation of homosexual acts in Northern Ireland in 1982, remarking to Ian Paisley, who led delegations opposed to the move, "We're not proposing to make it compulsory". Paisley labelled him "the little green Lord", apparently only partially a sartorial comment. He was also involved in discussions about restoring devolved government and proposed a model using a formal arrangement between the two main communities of Northern Ireland, somewhat like that which eventually materialised under the Good Friday Agreement.

In 1983 he was sworn of the Privy Council and entered the Cabinet as Minister for the Arts. During his time as arts minister, he introduced a scheme which allowed donations of art to public galleries and museums to be offset against death duties. He was also Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster from 1984, with additional responsibility for personnel and management of the Civil Service, and held his ministerial posts until 1985. Thatcher offered him a promotion to the post of Secretary of State for Education and Science but instead he resigned from the Cabinet in 1985, stating that it was impossible for him to live in London on the £33,000 salary provided for the post, a claim that caused some agitation, as it was three times the average London wage of the time.

Later career

After leaving government, Gowrie in 1985 took up a post as chairperson of Sotheby's International, overseeing the auction house's business in Europe and the Far East, at a reputed salary of £150,000. This followed rumours that he might take a senior role at Sotheby's major rival, Christie's. He was also brought on to the global board of Sotheby's under Alfred Taubman; he worked for the company until 1994. He was subsequently appointed chairman of the Arts Council of England - described as "the appointment of a Scot, born in Ireland and living in Wales" to a key English post. At the Arts Council, he secured the role as a distributor of funds from the National Lottery. He supported, and later inaugurated, the Angel of the North sculpture. He chaired the Booker Prize panel which dismissed A Suitable Boy, of which he commented "we wanted the book to succeed ...we thought it was abysmally edited and tailored. ... promising lines of development and tension kept running out. The book needed cutting, like a movie.", and awarded the 1993 prize to Roddy Doyle's Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha.

Gowrie lectured on English and American literature at Harvard and University College, London. He held the unpaid post of Provost of the Royal College of Art. He also made a number of television appearances, including in documentaries on the Anglo-Irish artist Francis Bacon, Irish art collector Garech Browne, artist and British folk revivalist and blues pioneer Rory McEwen, and the Royal National Theatre, as well as multiple episodes of Question Time. He also opened a Bacon exhibition at the Central House of Artists in Moscow, Russia, for which he also wrote the catalogue introduction.

Gowrie was a patron of the Elton John AIDS Foundation. Together with Rowan Williams and Daniel Day-Lewis, he was also a patron of the Wilfred Owen Association, formed in 1989 to commemorate the life and work of the renowned First World War poet Wilfred Owen. He was a founding director of the British Fund for the National Gallery of Ireland (later the International Friends of the National Gallery of Ireland), from 1996 to 2000, rejoining in 2003, serving as co-chairman, and stepping down in 2011. In 2008, he accepted an invitation from CEO Farad Azima to chair the newly-formed Advisory Board of the Iran Heritage Foundation.

Writing

Early writings

Gowrie published one volume of poetry in his 20s, Postcard from Don Giovanni after a period working as an assistant to American poet Robert Lowell, and later contributed the chapter on 20th century painting to a book on British painting, The Genius of British Painting, published in 1975. In 1987 he published a biography and artistic profile of the artist Derek Hill, Derek Hill: An Appreciation.

Health and later writings

In the summer of 1999, having been diagnosed with a serious heart condition, he received a heart transplant at Harefield Hospital and, after a long recovery, left hospital in 2000; his health remained frail thereafter. He became friends with his principal surgeon, Magdi Yacoub, and chaired the institute named for him. Following his release from hospital, he published his first book of poetry for decades, The Domino Hymn, which contains references to his illness - the title refers to the fact that he was a "domino patient", i.e. one who received a heart from a fellow patient undergoing a heart-and-lung transplant. He later also released Third Day with a mix of new and collected poetry. A "Collected Poems" was released in 2014, and reissued in 2017.

In 2003, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

Personal life

Residences

Gowrie inherited Castlemartin House and Estate at Kilcullen in County Kildare, Ireland, from his great-aunt, Sheelagh Blacker, in 1967, and later sold it to Tony O'Reilly. He lived partly in Ireland until 1983, and then moved to the Llanfechain in the Welsh Marches, where he presided over the local show in 1998, and attended the regional literary festival. He maintained a London base throughout also, latterly a house in Kensington.

Family

Gowrie married Xandra (Alexandra) Bingley, daughter of Colonel Robert Bingley, on 1 November 1962. They had one son:

• (Patrick Leo) Brer Ruthven, 3rd Earl of Gowrie (born 4 February 1964), a database developer and musician. Brer Ruthven married Julie Goldsmith and had one son, Heathcote Patrick Cornelius Ruthven, born 28 May 1990.

Gowrie and Alexandra Bingley, who became a writer and editor, divorced in 1973.

On 2 November 1974, Gowrie married Adelheid Gräfin von der Schulenburg (b. 24 October 1943), sixth and youngest child and fifth and youngest daughter of Fritz-Dietlof Graf von der Schulenburg (1902–10 August 1944), a German Graf (Count) and one of the leaders of the 1944 plot to assassinate Hitler, and his wife Charlotte Kotelmann. He was known to describe himself as "an Irishman with a Scots title, married to a German" and to say "I am a Nationalist, not a Unionist".

Friends

Gowrie remained friends with Lowell, his poetic mentor, and was a pallbearer at his funeral. He has also been closely associated with Edward Plunkett, the Anglo-Irish painter, and was godfather to one of his sons, and purchaser of the Kent house of his famous grandfather, The 18th Baron of Dunsany, the famous writer. He described Margaret Thatcher, Francis Bacon and Andrew Lloyd Webber as among his best friends, and was also friends with Boris Johnson, leading the pre-wedding dinner for Johnson's first marriage. He had come to know Bacon later in life, but discovered that they had both partly grown up around the same small town, Kilcullen in County Kildare. He participated in a television documentary about another friend, Guinness heir Garech Browne. Auberon "Bron" Waugh pursued a decades-long public vendetta with Gowrie, over a romantic competition at Oxford which Gowrie had won; despite this, when Waugh died, Gowrie described him as "The greatest journalist of my generation".

Death

Lord Gowrie died after a long illness, at his home in Llanfechain, in Montgomeryshire and Powys, Wales, on 24 September 2021, at the age of 81. His widow, Adelheid "Neiti", Countess of Gowrie, survived him, and his son succeeded to the peerages and the clan chieftainship.

External links

• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Alexander (Grey) Hore-Ruthven, 2nd Earl of Gowrie
• Portraits of Grey Gowrie at the National Portrait Gallery, London