Jo Grimond

Early life

Grimond was born in St Andrews, Fife, and educated at Eton College and Balliol College, Oxford. He was at school and university with, among others, cricket commentator Brian Johnston and playwright William Douglas-Home. He received a first class honours degree in Politics, Philosophy and Economics. He became a barrister, being admitted to the bar as a member of Middle Temple.

Member of Parliament

After serving as a Major in World War II, he was selected by the Liberal Party to fight Orkney and Shetland, the most northerly constituency in the United Kingdom. He narrowly missed capturing the seat in 1945 but entered Parliament in the 1950 general election and continued to represent the constituency until he retired from politics in 1983. He regularly polled more than 60% of the votes cast in the northern Scottish archipelagos.

Leader of the Liberal Party

The party Grimond inherited from former leader Clement Davies had commanded barely 2.5% of the vote at the general election of 1955, but even that figure amounted to a modest revival in Liberal Party fortunes. This progress increased under the leadership of Grimond who proved himself to be a man of considerable personal charm and intelligence, with substantial gifts as public speaker and as an author. Widely respected as well as trusted, he ensured that by the time he left the leadership in 1967, the Liberals had once again become a notable political force. It was during his tenure 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 (the first by-election gain by the Liberal Party for 29 years), Orpington in 1962, and Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles in 1965.

In the year of the Orpington by-election, the Liberals almost succeeded in capturing Blackpool North, West Derbyshire and Chippenham from the Conservatives and Leicester North East from Labour. Grimond's dynamic and principled leadership proved attractive to many young aspiring politicians, including John Pardoe and three future party leaders, David Steel, Paddy Ashdown and Sir Menzies Campbell. He appealed to all wings of the party and was especially popular with the Young Liberals. In 1967, having led the party through three general elections, he made way for a younger leader, the charismatic 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 the Commons, he was created a life peer as Baron Grimond, of Firth in the County of Orkney on 12 October 1983. He remained devoted to his former parliamentary constituency, and was buried in Finstown on Orkney.

Marriage and children

In 1938 he married Laura Bonham Carter (1918–1994). His wife was the granddaughter of the last Liberal Prime Minister, H. H. Asquith, the daughter of the influential Liberal politician and life peeress Violet Bonham Carter (1887–1969) and her politician and civil servant husband Maurice Bonham Carter. She was also the sister of another life peer Mark Bonham Carter (1922–1994) who was the victor of the 1958 by-election at Torrington. The couple had four children:

Writings

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