Ian Orr-Ewing

(Charles) Ian Orr-Ewing, Baron Orr-Ewing OBE CEng MIEE (10 February 1912 – 19 August 1999) was a British Conservative politician.

Orr-Ewing was a great-grandson of Sir Archibald Orr-Ewing, Bt. and was educated at Harrow School and Trinity College, Oxford. After graduating in 1933 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in electrical engineering, he worked with the BBC from 1937 until 1939, when he joined the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve and served in the North Africa, Italy and North-West Europe theatres during World War II and was also General Eisenhower's Chief Radar Officer in 1945. After the war, he returned to the BBC until 1949.

Orr-Ewing's political career began in 1950, when he was elected Member of Parliament for Hendon North, a seat he held for twenty years. During this time, he was: Parliamentary Private Secretary to Walter Monckton, the Minister of Labour, from 1951-55; Parliamentary Under-Secretary to George Reginald Ward, the Secretary of State for Air, from 1957-59; Parliamentary and Financial Secretary to The Admiralty in 1959; Civil Lord of the Admiralty from 1959-63; Vice-President of the [http://www.vmine.net/scienceinparliament/index.asp Parliamentary and Scientific Committee] in 1966 and Vice-Chairman of the Defence Committee from 1966-70.

Having been created a baronet in 1963, Orr-Ewing retired from the Commons in 1970 and was created a life peer a year later, as Baron Orr-Ewing, of Little Berkhamsted in the County of Hertfordshire.