Quintin Hogg, Baron Hailsham of St Marylebone

Quintin McGarel Hogg, Baron Hailsham of St Marylebone, (9 October 1907 – 12 October 2001), known as the 2nd Viscount Hailsham between 1950 and 1963, at which point he disclaimed his hereditary peerage, was a British barrister and Conservative Party politician.

Like his father, Hailsham was considered to be a contender for the leadership of the Conservative Party.

Hogg participated in his first election campaign in the 1924 general election, and all subsequent general election campaigns until his death.

Hogg was educated at Sunningdale School and then Eton College, where he was a King's Scholar and won the Newcastle Scholarship in 1925.

He entered Christ Church, Oxford as a Scholar and he was President of the Oxford University Conservative Association and of the Oxford Union.

He took Firsts in Honours Moderations in 1928 and in Literae Humaniores in 1930.

He was elected to a Prize Fellowship in Law at All Souls College, Oxford, in 1931.

He was called to the bar by Lincoln's Inn in 1932.

Hogg spoke in opposition to the motion "That this House will in no circumstances fight for its King and Country" in the 1933 King and Country debate at the Oxford Union.

In 1938, Hogg was chosen as a candidate for Parliament in the Oxford by-election.

This election took place shortly after the Munich Agreement and the Labour candidate Patrick Gordon Walker was persuaded to step down to allow a unified challenge to the Conservatives; A. D. Lindsay, the Master of Balliol College fought as an 'Independent Progressive' candidate.

Hogg narrowly defeated Lindsay, who was said to be horrified by the popular slogan of "Hitler wants Hogg".

Hogg voted against Neville Chamberlain in the Norway Debate of May 1940, and supported Winston Churchill.

He served briefly in the desert campaign as a platoon commander with the Rifle Brigade during the Second World War.

His commanding officer had been his contemporary at Eton; after him and the second-in-command, Hogg was the third-oldest officer in the battalion.

After a knee wound in August 1941, which almost cost him his right leg, Hogg was deemed too old for further front-line service, and later served on the staff of General "Jumbo" Wilson before leaving the army with the rank of major.

In the run-up to the 1945 election, Hogg wrote a response to the book Guilty Men, called The Left Was Never Right.

Hogg's father died in 1950 and Hogg entered the House of Lords, succeeding his father as the second Viscount Hailsham.

When the Conservatives returned to power under Churchill in 1951, he refused to be considered for office.

Believing his political career to be over he concentrated on his career at the bar for some years, taking silk in 1953 and becoming head of his barristers' chambers in 1955, succeeding to Kenneth Diplock.

In 1956, he refused appointment as Postmaster-General under Anthony Eden on financial grounds, only to accept appointment as First Lord of the Admiralty six weeks later.

His appointment, however, had to be delayed because of the Crabb affair.

As First Lord, Hailsham was briefed about Eden's plans to use military force against Egypt, which he thought were 'madness'.

Nevertheless, once Operation Musketeer had been launched, he thought that Britain could not retreat until the Suez Canal had been captured.

When, in the middle of the operation, Lord Mountbatten threatened to resign as First Sea Lord in protest, Hailsham ordered him in writing to stay on duty: he believed that Mountbatten was entitled to be protected by his minister, and that he was bound to resign if the honour of the Navy was impaired by the conduct of the operation.

Hailsham remained critical of the actions of the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, Harold Macmillan, during the crisis, believing that he had suffered from a failure of nerve.

Hailsham became Minister of Education in 1957 under Macmillan, holding the office for eight months, before accepting appointment as Lord President of the Council and Chairman of the Conservative Party in September 1957.

During his term as Party Chairman, the Conservative Party won a notable victory in the 1959 general election, which it had been predicted to lose.

Concurrently, Hailsham was Lord Privy Seal between 1959 and 1960, Lord President of the Council between 1960 and 1964, and Leader of the House of Lords between 1960 and 1963, having been Deputy Leader between 1957 and 1960.

He was also given a number of special assignments by Macmillan, becoming Minister with special responsibility for Sport from 1962 to 1964, for unemployment in the North-East between 1963 and 1964 and for higher education between 1963 and 1964.

Hailsham, who had little interest in sports, thought little of his appointment as de facto Sports minister, later writing that "[t]he idea of a Minister for Sport has always appalled me. It savours of dictatorship and the nastiest kind of populist or Fascist dictatorship at that."

Hailsham appeared before the Wolfenden Committee to discuss homosexuality.

The historian Patrick Higgins said that he used it as "an opportunity to express his disgust".

He stated "The instinct of mankind to describe homosexual acts as "unnatural" is not based on mere prejudice" and that homosexuals were corrupting and "a proselytising religion".

He was a contender to succeed Harold Macmillan as prime minister in 1963, renouncing his hereditary peerage to do so, but was passed over in favour of the Sir Alec Douglas-Home.

Nevertheless, shortly after the election, Hailsham was sidelined, and was made Minister for Science and Technology, serving in that post until 1964.

He was created a life peer in 1970 and served as Lord Chancellor, the office formerly held by his father, in 1970-74 and 1979–87.

Born in Bayswater, London, Hogg was the son of Douglas Hogg, 1st Viscount Hailsham, who was Lord Chancellor under Stanley Baldwin, and grandson of Quintin Hogg, a merchant, philanthropist and educational reformer, and an American mother.

The middle name McGarel comes from Charles McGarel, who had large holdings of slaves, and who financially sponsored Quintin Hogg's grandfather, also called Quintin Hogg, who was McGarel's brother-in-law.

His tenure as Science Minister was successful, and he was later elected to the Royal Society under Statute 12 in 1973.