Humphrey Atkins
 Humphrey Atkins    (politician) | ||||||||||||
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| Born | 12 August 1922 | |||||||||||
| Died | 4 October 1996 (Age 74) | |||||||||||
| Nationality | UK | |||||||||||
| Alma mater | Wellington College | |||||||||||
| Spouse | Margaret Spencer-Nairn | |||||||||||
| Party | Conservative | |||||||||||
British politician and a member of the Conservative Party described as "Maggie's Poodle"
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Humphrey Edward Gregory Atkins, Baron Colnbrook was a British politician and a member of the Conservative Party. He was a Member of Parliament (MP) for 32 years, and sat in the Cabinet of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher from 1979 to 1982.[1]
Margaret Thatcher may have had an affair with Atkins, at the time Tory chief whip and once described as "Maggie’s Poodle", who backed her for the party leadership in 1975, especially when husband Denis disappeared to South Africa in the early Sixties.[2]
Early life
Atkins was born on 12 August 1922, in Chalfont St Peter, Buckinghamshire, son of Captain Edward Davis Atkins and Violet Mary (nee Preston) and lived in Kenya until the age of three. He and his wife, Margaret (née Spencer-Nairn; 1924–2012), had four children, three daughters and one son.[3]
Atkins was educated at Wellington College, Berkshire, and served in the Royal Navy from 1940 to 1948. In 1944, Atkins married a highly political wife, Margaret Spencer-Nairn, and formed an alliance with her prosperous linoleum manufacturing family; the war over, Margaret's father took him into the business, and she set about "fully awakening his fairly dormant Tory political instincts".[1]
Political career
Atkins contested the constituency of West Lothian in 1951, and was elected as a Member of Parliament (MP) for Merton and Morden in 1955. He became MP for Spelthorne in 1970.
Atkins was the Conservative Chief Whip from 1973 to 1979, and worked as a Secretary of State for Northern Ireland from 1979 to 1981. During his tenure, the Irish hunger strike in 1980/81 came, to end the Northern Ireland conflict. Ten IRA prisoners died, including Bobby Sands, who was elected to the House of Commons himself in a by-election in the constituency of Fermanagh & South Tyrone almost four weeks before his death on 5 May 1981, but was unable to stand for office because of his prison sentence. Atkins commented on the situation at that time with the words:
- "If Mr. Sands persisted in his wish to commit suicide, that was his choice. The Government would not force medical treatment upon him."[4]
In September 1981, he was appointed as Lord Privy Seal, which was a role as the chief government spokesman in the House of Commons for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs. This role was necessary because the Foreign Secretary, Lord Carrington, sat in the House of Lords. He resigned in April 1982, along with Lord Carrington, over the Falklands invasion. Atkins was particularly unfortunate (due to late briefings) because he made a statement to the House denying that an attack was imminent, hours after Argentinian troops had taken Port Stanley.[1]
He was Chairman of the Select Committee on Defence 1984-87.[1]
Atkins was appointed to the Order of St Michael and St George as a Knight Commander (KCMG) in the 1983 Dissolution Honours.[5] He left the House of Commons in 1987 and was created a life peer on 16 October as Baron Colnbrook of Waltham St Lawrence in the Royal County of Berkshire.[6][3]
Death
Atkins died from cancer on 4 October 1996 at the age of 74 in Waltham St Lawrence, Berkshire.
References
- ↑ a b c d https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituaries-lord-colnbrook-1357357.html
- ↑ https://www.standard.co.uk/news/londoners-diary/was-humphrey-atkins-more-than-maggie-s-poodle-8928960.html
- ↑ a b http://www.newulsterbiography.co.uk/index.php/home/viewPerson/1791
- ↑ Provos The IRA & Sinn Féin, S. 242–243
- ↑ https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/49424/supplement/9700
- ↑ https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/51097/page/12971
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