Politician, war hero and landowner;
Born October 24, 1912;
Died June 1, 2007.


Sir John Gilmour, who has died aged 94, was perhaps the last survivor of a Scottish Conservative breed once so common in Scotland: the so-called knight of the shire who usually eschewed party politics while diligently defending his constituents' interests.

Sir John was a typical yet fine example. For almost two decades he was a steady presence among Scottish Tory MPs at Westminster, and rarely - if ever - did he indulge in petty politics for its own sake. His personal manners were faultless, much like those of George Younger, a colleague during much of that time and whose father, the third Viscount Younger of Leckie, was Gilmour's cousin.

Although he never joined the ministerial ranks, unlike his father, who was Scottish and Home Secretary in the 1920s and 1930s, the high point of his political career came in 1965 when he was appointed by Sir Alec Douglas-Home as chairman of the newly-rebranded Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party, then as now a distinct political entity.

Gilmour oversaw internal reforms including the abolition of the old east and west divisional councils, a long-overdue expansion of the chairman's office and - most controversial of all - the jettisoning of the old Unionist tag. But when the General Election of 1966 brought further Tory losses north of the border, the inevitable muttering began that a more overtly political chairman was needed to take on an increasingly confident Labour Party in Scotland.

One official at Scottish Central Office likened Gilmour to a "pussy cat acting as a watch dog", a reference to the chairman's role as a link between the party in parliament and the party in Scotland. There was therefore no use, the official added, to complain that he never barked.

Barking at his opponents, whether external or internal, was simply not Gilmour's style, although his genial manner did generate valuable cross-party affection in the House.

His style was born of a different political era. Once, when he was urged to refer to local government elections in a constituency speech, Gilmour reacted uneasily. "The people I'm speaking to local party activists aren't very keen on politics in local government," he reasoned, "so I don't think I'd better."

Yet it had been the old Fife County Council which gave Gilmour his first taste of elected politics in the 1950s. Born in 1912 in Pollok, on the south side of Glasgow, where his father was the MP, John Edward Gilmour had a solid academic career at Eton and read law at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, where he was also a member of the winning 1933 boat team.

He volunteered with the Fife and Forfar Yeomanry in 1939, and when a year into the conflict his father, then Minister of Shipping, died, he succeeded to the title.

In 1941 Gilmour married Ursula Wills, while Montrave, his ancestral home near Leven, was being converted into a hospital catering mainly for Polish servicemen.

Like many future Tory MPs, Gilmour had a distinguished military career, and he first saw action nine days after D-Day. Heavy casualties in Operation Goodwood - the breakout from the Caen enclave to the Falaise Gap - resulted in him briefly assuming command, at one point from on top of the regimental bulldozer.

Although wounded near Belsen and invalided home in 1945, Gilmour was that year awarded the Distinguished Service Order and also contested, unsuccessfully, Clackmannan and East Stirlingshire in the General Election.

Throwing himself into the administration of Montrave and local Fife politics, Gilmour proved a staunch defender of local agriculture, a fight he continued as an MP, most notably in his campaign to keep open a sugar-beet factory just outside Cupar, the only one in Scotland. It finally closed in 1972, despite a vigorous defence by the local MP, himself a sugar-beet producer.

He won East Fife following a lively by-election campaign in November 1961, in which a young Labour candidate by the name of John Smith posed a serious threat.

Almost 30 years of further activity in public life followed his voluntary retirement from the House of Commons in 1979; the Territorial Army was a long-standing interest, as was his membership of the Royal Company of Archers. Gilmour was chosen as Lord High Commissioner to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in 1982 and 1983, a role both he and his late wife Ursula executed with skill and grace.

He was also, to his immense satisfaction, Lord Lieutenant of Fife from 1980-87.

Gilmour was a regular attender at local Conservative events until recently.

His eldest son, also John, succeeds to the title as the fourth Baronet of Lundin and Montrave.



By DAVID TORRANCE