Hugh Fraser (politician)

Major Sir Hugh Charles Patrick Joseph Fraser MBE (23 January 1918 – 6 March 1984) was a British Conservative politician and first husband of Lady Antonia Fraser.He was a younger son of the 14th Lord Lovat and a prominent Roman Catholic.

Fraser was educated at Ampleforth College, Balliol College, Oxford, where he was President of the Oxford Union, and at the Sorbonne. He was commissioned into the Lovat Scouts in 1936 and during World War II saw service in North Africa and Europe; he retired in the 1950s with the rank of Major.

Fraser was elected Member of Parliament for Stone in 1945, later Stafford and Stone following constituency boundary changes, from 1950 until 1983, and then Stafford again until his death. He served as an MP continuously from 1945 until 1984 but did not become Father of the House as he was sworn in as an MP on August 15, 1945 while James Callaghan had been sworn in on August 2, 1945 and so he, rather than Fraser, became Father following the 1983 election. He was Parliamentary Private Secretary to Oliver Lyttelton (1951-54), a junior minister in the War Office (1958-60) and Colonial Office (1960-62), and Secretary of State for Air (1962-64). He was an unsuccessful candidate in the Conservative Party's 1975 leadership election, gaining 16 votes in the first round challenging incumbent Edward Heath.

Private Life

Fraser married the future author Lady Antonia Pakenham, daughter of the Earl and Countess of Longford, on 25 September 1956. They had six children, Benjamin Fraser, Damian Fraser, Orlando Fraser, Rebecca Fraser, Flora Fraser and Natasha Fraser, but were divorced in 1977.

Sir Hugh and Lady Antonia, together with Caroline Kennedy who was visiting at the time, were intended targets of an IRA car bomb on 23 October 1975, but the bomb exploded prematurely, killing a passer-by, the well-respected cancer researcher Prof. Gordon Hamilton-Fairley, instead of them.

Sir Hugh Fraser died from lung cancer in March 1984, aged 66.

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External links

* [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D06E4DA1539F934A35750C0A962948260 Obituary]