The Lord Boothby | |
|---|---|
 Boothby in 1924 | |
| Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food | |
| In office 15 May 1940 – 22 October 1940 | |
| Monarch | George VI |
| Prime Minister | Winston Churchill |
| Preceded by | Alan Lennox-Boyd |
| Succeeded by | Gwilym Lloyd George |
| Member of the House of Lords Lord Temporal | |
| In office 18 August 1958 – 16 July 1986 Life peerage | |
| Member of Parliament | |
| In office 29 October 1924 – 18 August 1958 | |
| Preceded by | Frederick Martin |
| Succeeded by | Patrick Wolrige-Gordon |
| Constituency |
|
| Personal details | |
| Born | (1900-02-12)12 February 1900 Edinburgh, Scotland |
| Died | 16 July 1986(1986-07-16) (aged 86) London, England |
| Political party | Conservative |
| Other political affiliations | Popular Front |
| Spouses | |
| Parents |
|
| Alma mater | |
Robert John Graham Boothby, Baron Boothby,KBE (12 February 1900 – 16 July 1986) was a BritishConservative politician.
The only son of SirRobert Tuite Boothby, KBE, ofEdinburgh and a cousin of Rosalind Grant, mother of thebroadcasterSir Ludovic Kennedy, Boothby was educated atSt Aubyns School,Eton College, andMagdalen College, Oxford. Before going up to Oxford, near the end of theFirst World War, he trained as an officer and was commissioned into theBrigade of Guards, but was too young to see active service.[1] Boothby read History at theUniversity of Oxford; the shortened war course was not classed, being marked either 'Pass' or 'Fail'. He attended a few lectures and did some general reading, but, as he cheerfully observed, "there were far too many other things to do".[2] He achieved a pass without distinction in 1921.[3] After Oxford, he became a partner in a firm ofstockbrokers.
Boothby was an unsuccessful parliamentary candidate forOrkney and Shetland in 1923 and was elected asMember of Parliament (MP) forAberdeen and Kincardine East in 1924. He held the seat until its abolition in 1950, when he was elected for its successor constituency ofEast Aberdeenshire. Re-elected a final time in 1955, he gave up the seat in 1958 when he was raised to the peerage, triggeringa by-election.
Boothby wasParliamentary Private Secretary toChancellor of the ExchequerWinston Churchill from 1926 to 1929. He helped launch thePopular Front in December 1936.[4] He held junior ministerial office asParliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food in 1940–41. He was later forced to resign his post and go to the back benches for not declaring an interest when asking a parliamentary question. During theSecond World War he joined theRoyal Air Force Volunteer Reserve and served as a junior staff officer withBomber Command, and later as a liaison officer with theFree French Forces, retiring with the rank ofFlight Lieutenant. In 1950 he received theLegion of Honour for his latter services.[5]
In 1954 (echoing words he had said in 1934), Boothby complained that for 30 years he had been advocating "a constructive policy on broad lines" but that this had not been taken up: "The doctrine of infallibility has always applied to theTreasury and theBank of England". Boothby opposedfree trade in food stuffs, and claimed that such a policy would invalidate theAgriculture Act 1947 and ruin British farmers. Thiseconomic liberalism of the Chancellor of the Exchequer,Rab Butler, led to Boothby complaining that "The Tory Party have in fact become theLiberal Party" and cited what the leader of the Liberal Party (Clement Davies) had said to him about Butler: "SirRobert Peel has come again."[6] In response, Davies claimed that Boothby "has been sitting on the wrong side of the House for many years. Undoubtedly he said tonight that he is the planner of planners. I do not believe in that kind of planning. The hon. Member seems to know better than the ordinary person what is good for the ordinary person, what he ought to buy, where he ought to buy it, where he ought to manufacture and everything else of that kind. There is the true Socialist".[6]
Boothby was a British delegate to the Consultative Assembly of theCouncil of Europe from 1949 until 1957 and advocated theUnited Kingdom's entry into theEuropean Economic Community (a predecessor of theEuropean Union). He was a prominent commentator on public affairs on radio and television, often taking part in the long-runningBBC radio programmeAny Questions. He also advocated the virtues ofherring as a food.[7]
He was Vice-Chairman of the Committee on Economic Affairs, 1952–1956; Honorary President of the Scottish Chamber of Agriculture, 1934;Rector of the University of St Andrews, 1958–1961; Chairman of theRoyal Philharmonic Orchestra, 1961–1963; and President, Anglo-Israel Association, 1962–1975. He was awarded an Honorary LLD by St Andrews in 1959, and was made an HonoraryBurgess of the Burghs ofPeterhead,Fraserburgh,Turriff andRosehearty. He was appointed an Officer of theLegion of Honour in 1950, and aKBE in 1953.[8]
Boothby was raised to the peerage as alife peer with the titleBaron Boothby, ofBuchan andRattray Head in theCounty of Aberdeen, on 22 August 1958.[9]
There is ablue plaque on his house inEaton Square, London.
He was the subject ofThis Is Your Life in October 1963, when he was surprised byEamonn Andrews atBBC Television Centre.
During the 1950s, Boothby was a prominent advocate of decriminalizing homosexual acts between men. In his memoirs, he wrote that he was determined to "do something practical to remove the fear and misery in which many of our most gifted citizens were then compelled to live".[10]
In December 1953, he sent a memorandum toDavid Maxwell Fyfe, then theHome Secretary, calling for the establishment of a departmental inquiry into homosexuality. He argued that:
By attaching so fearful a stigma to homosexuality as such, you put a very large number of otherwise law-abiding and useful citizens on the other side of the fence which divides the good citizen from the bad. By making them feel that, instead of unfortunates they are social pariahs, you drive them into squalor – perhaps into crime; and produce that very "underground" which it is so clearly in the public interest to eradicate.[11]
Boothby premised his argument for law reform on the idea that it was the role of the state "not topunish psychological disorders – rather to try and cure them".[11] He argued in theHouse of Commons that the law as it was did not "achieve the objective of all of us, which is to limit the incidence of homosexuality and to mitigate its evil effects."[12]
After the Departmental Committee on Homosexual Offences and Prostitution recommended decriminalization in theWolfenden Report of 1957, Boothby claimed that, through his correspondence with Fyfe, he had been "primarily responsible" for the committee's establishment.[13]
Boothby had a colourful, if reasonably discreet, private life, mainly because the press refused to print what they knew of him, or were prevented from doing so.Woodrow Wyatt, whose reliability has been questioned,[14][15][16] claimed after the death ofQueen Elizabeth the Queen Mother that she had confided to him in an interview in 1991 that "The press knew all about it", referring to Boothby's affairs, and that she had described Boothby as "a bounder but not a cad".[17]
From 1930, Boothby had a long affair withLady Dorothy Macmillan, wife of the Conservative politicianHarold Macmillan (prime minister from 1957 to 1963). He was rumoured to be the father of the youngest Macmillan daughter, Sarah, although the 2010 biography of Harold Macmillan byD. R. Thorpe discounts Boothby's paternity.[17][18][19] This connection to Macmillan, via his wife, has been seen as one of the reasons why the police did not investigate the death ofEdward Cavendish, 10th Duke of Devonshire, who died in the presence of suspectedserial killerJohn Bodkin Adams.[17] The duke was Lady Dorothy's brother, and it is thought the police were wary of drawing press attention to her while she was being unfaithful.[17]
Boothby was married twice. His first wife (married 1935) was Diana Cavendish, daughter ofLord Richard Cavendish, and Lady Dorothy's first cousin; Boothby married her after concluding his relationship with the married Lady Dorothy to be "on the wane". He swiftly realised the marriage had been a mistake (it went on to be a source of long-lasting guilt feelings for him) and it was dissolved in 1937.[20] In 1967, Boothby married Wanda Sanna, a Sardinian woman 33 years his junior. His second cousin, writer and broadcaster SirLudovic Kennedy, asserted that Boothby fathered at least three children by the wives of other men ("two by one woman, one by another").[21]
Partly because of his support for homosexual law reform, Boothby was subject to public rumours about his sexuality, although he insisted publicly in 1954 that he was "not a homosexual".[22] He did, however, comment that "sub-conscious bi-sexuality is a component part of all of us [and] the majority of males pass through a homosexual period".[23] While an undergraduate atMagdalen College, Oxford, Boothby earned the nickname 'the Palladium', because "he was twice nightly".[24] He later spoke about the role of a speculated homosexual relationship in the drowning of his friendMichael Llewelyn Davies (one of the models forPeter Pan) and fellow OxonianRupert Buxton.[25] In aChannel 4 documentary broadcast in 1997, it was claimed that he did not begin to have physical relationships with women until the age of 25.[24]
In 1963, Boothby began an affair withEast End cat burglar Leslie Holt (d. 1979), a younger man he met at a gambling club. Holt introduced him to the gangster Ronnie Kray, one of theKray twins, who allegedly supplied Boothby with young men, and arranged orgies in Cedra Court (the apartment block inHackney where the Kray twins lived), receiving favours from Boothby in return.[24] When Boothby's underworld associations came to the attention of theSunday Express, theConservative-supporting newspaper opted not to publish the damaging story.[26][27] The matter was eventually reported in 1964 in the Labour-supportingSunday Mirror tabloid, and the parties were subsequently named by the German magazineStern.[28]
Boothby denied the story and threatened to sue theMirror. His close friendTom Driberg—a seniorLabour MP, and also homosexual—also associated with the Krays; hence, neither of the major political parties had an interest in publicity, and the newspaper's ownerCecil King came under pressure from the Labour leadership to drop the matter.[24] TheMirror backed down, sacked its editor, apologised and paid Boothby £40,000 in an out-of-court settlement (equivalent to £1,023,866 in 2023). Other newspapers became less willing to cover the Krays' criminal activities, which continued for three more years.[24] The police investigation received no support fromScotland Yard, while Boothby embarrassed his fellow peers by campaigning on behalf of the Krays in theLords, until their increasing violence made association impossible.[24] It has been claimed that journalists who investigated Boothby were subjected to legal threats and break-ins, and that much of that suppression was directed byArnold Goodman. Documents released in 2015 show that MI5 used the Kray twins to gather intelligence on homosexual politicians and establishment figures.[citation needed]
The MI5 files focus on Lord Boothby, who was said to share Ronnie Kray's fondness for young men.[29]
Boothby was a frequent visitor to Weimar Germany, and in 1932, he was invited to meetHitler. In his autobiography, he recalls that Hitler "sprang to his feet, lifted his right arm, and shouted 'Hitler!'; ... I responded by clicking my heels together, raising my right arm, and shouting back: 'Boothby!'" Unlike some who were impressed by Hitler, Boothby came away thinking he had seen "the unmistakable glint of madness in his eyes," and the meeting helped convince him to become one of Churchill's small group of parliamentary campaigners for faster rearmament.[30]
After his death from aheart attack inWestminster Hospital, London, aged 86, Boothby's ashes were scattered atRattray Head nearCrimond,Aberdeenshire, off the coast of his former constituency.[31]
  |
|
| Parliament of the United Kingdom | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Member of Parliament forAberdeen and Kincardine East 1924–1950 | Constituency abolished |
| New constituency | Member of Parliament forAberdeenshire Eastern 1950–1958 | Succeeded by |
| Academic offices | ||
| Preceded by | Rector of the University of St Andrews 1958–1961 | Succeeded by |
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| People | |
| Other | |
