Peter Carington, 6th Baron Carrington

Background, education and military career

Carrington is the only son of the 5th Baron Carrington by his wife, the Hon. Sybil Marion Colville, a daughter of Charles Colville, 2nd Viscount Colville of Culross. He is a great-nephew of the Liberal statesman Charles Wynn-Carington, 1st Marquess of Lincolnshire, and also of politician and courtier the Hon. Sir William Carington. He was educated at two independent schools: Sandroyd School from 1928–1932, at the time based in the town of Cobham, Surrey (now the site of Reed's School), and Eton College, followed by the Royal Military College, Sandhurst.

Following Sandhurst, Carrington was commissioned into the Grenadier Guards as a second lieutenant on 26 January 1939. He served with the regiment during the Second World War, he was promoted lieutenant on 1 January 1941, and later rose to the rank of temporary captain and acting major, and was awarded the Military Cross (MC) on 1 March 1945. After the war, Carrington remained in the army until 1949.

Political career 1946–1982

In 1938, Carrington succeeded his father as 6th Baron Carrington. Although he became eligible to take his seat in the House of Lords on his 21st birthday in 1940, he was on active service at the time, and did not do so until 9 October 1945. After leaving the Army, he became involved in politics and served in the Conservative governments of Winston Churchill and Anthony Eden as Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Agriculture and Food from November 1951 to October 1954 and to the Minister of Defence from October 1954 to October 1956. The latter year Carrington was appointed High Commissioner to Australia, a post he held until October 1959. He was also appointed a Deputy Lieutenant of Buckinghamshire on 2 July 1951. He became a Privy Counsellor in 1959.

After his return to Britain he served under Harold Macmillan as First Lord of the Admiralty until October 1963, and was then Minister without Portfolio and Leader of the House of Lords under Alec Douglas-Home until October 1964, when the Conservatives fell from power. From 1964 to 1970 he was Leader of the Opposition in the House of Lords. When the Conservatives returned to power in 1970 under Edward Heath, Carrington became Defence Secretary, where he remained until 1974 when the Conservatives were voted out in favour of Harold Wilson's Labour. In a 1977 letter discussing the policy of torture of Irish republican internees during Operation Demetrius in August 1971, the then Home Secretary Merlyn Rees attributed the origins of the policy in particular to Carrington: '"It is my view (confirmed by Brian Faulkner before his death [NI's prime minister at the time]) that the decision to use methods of torture in Northern Ireland in 1971/72 was taken by ministers – in particular Lord Carrington, then secretary of state for defence."

Carrington had become Shadow Defence Secretary in 1968 following the dismissal of Enoch Powell from the position following his controversial Rivers of Blood speech on immigration. He also served as Chairman of the Conservative Party from 1972 to 1974, and was briefly Secretary of State for Energy from January to March 1974.

Carrington was again Leader of the Opposition in the House of Lords from 1974 to 1979. In 1979 he was made Foreign Secretary and Minister for Overseas Development as part of the first Cabinet of Margaret Thatcher. Thatcher spoke very highly of Carrington, stating "Peter had great panache and the ability to identify immediately the main points in any argument; and he could express himself in pungent terms. We had disagreements, but there were never any hard feelings." He chaired the Lancaster House conference in 1979, attended by Ian Smith, Abel Muzorewa, Robert Mugabe, Joshua Nkomo, and Josiah Tongogara, which brought to end Rhodesia's Bush War, also called the Second Chimurenga. He would later express his support for Mugabe over Smith. He was Foreign Secretary in 1982 when the Falkland Islands were invaded by Argentina. He took full responsibility for the complacency and failures in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to foresee this development and resigned. Ministerial resignations in such circumstances are rare, and Carrington's attracted animated press discussion of the principles involved; it may be no coincidence that he had in 1954 been junior minister to Thomas Dugdale at the time of the latter's landmark resignation as Minister of Agriculture over the Crichel Down affair, and had then himself offered his resignation but been persuaded to withdraw it.

Later career

Lord Carrington then served as Secretary General of NATO from 1984 to 1988. He was also appointed Chancellor of the Order of St Michael and St George on 1 August 1984, serving until June 1994.

In 1991, he presided over diplomatic talks about the break-up of the former Yugoslavia and attempted to pass a plan that would end the wars and result in each republic becoming an independent nation.

Apart from his political posts, he was the Chancellor of the University of Reading and has served as chairman of several companies, including Christie's, and as a director of many others, including Barclays Bank, Schweppes and the Daily Telegraph. He also chaired the Bilderberg conferences for several years in the late 1990s, being succeeded in 1999 by Étienne Davignon. From 1983 to 2002, he was president of the Pilgrims Society. He was appointed Chancellor of the Order of the Garter on 8 November 1994, a role from which he retired in October 2012.

After the House of Lords Act 1999 removed the automatic right of hereditary peers to sit in the House of Lords, Carrington, along with all former Leaders of the House of Lords, was given a life peerage on 17 November 1999 as Baron Carington of Upton, of Upton in the County of Nottinghamshire. He is the longest-serving member of the House of Lords, and since the retirement of Lord Barber of Tewkesbury in 2016, has been the oldest. He is the second longest-serving member of the Privy Council after The Duke of Edinburgh.

Family

Lord Carrington married Iona McClean (19 March 1920 – 7 June 2009), daughter of Lt.-Colonel Sir Francis Kennedy McClean , on 25 April 1942. They had three children:

Lord Carrington's wife, Lady Carrington, died on 7 June 2009, aged 89.

In popular culture

Carrington was portrayed by Rowan Atkinson on Not the Nine O'Clock News in a parody of Question Time, in which Lord Carrington was portrayed as pedantically discussing an imminent nuclear holocaust.

Carrington was portrayed by James Fox in the 2002 BBC production of Ian Curteis's The Falklands Play.

Carrington was referenced on the 6th series of Peep Show (2009) in a list of imagined dog names by Mark.

Carrington was briefly portrayed by James Smith in the 2011 film The Iron Lady.

Carrington was briefly portrayed by Jeff Rawle in the 2014 play Handbagged.

Titles and styles

Honours

Honorary degrees