Archibald Sinclair, 1st Viscount Thurso

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Archibald Sinclair, 1st Viscount Thurso

Archibald Henry Macdonald Sinclair, 1st Viscount Thurso , KT , CMG , PC (* 22. October 1890 in Chelsea , London ; † 15. June 1970 ) was a British politician of the Liberal Party , the 1922-1945 member of the House ( House of Commons ) , 1931-1932 Minister of Scotland (Secretary of State for Scotland) and 1935-1945 chairman of the Liberal Party was. During the Second World War he served from 1940 to 1945 as Secretary of State for Air . In 1952, he was as Viscount Thurso raised to the hereditary nobility and belonged until his death in 1970, the upper house ( House of Lords ) as a member.

Life

Officer, Member of the House of Commons and Minister for Scotland

Sinclair was the only son of Lieutenant Colonel Clarence Granville Sinclair and his wife Mabel Sands. After attending the renowned Eton College , he completed an officer training at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst and then joined the Life Guards as an officer . Since his father had died on November 16, 1895, he inherited Sir John Sinclair, 3rd Baronet , on September 29, 1912, the title of 4th Baronet, of Ulbster, when his grandfather died . In the First World War he took part as a major in the Life Guards and was last from 1918 to 1919 Personal Military Secretary to Secretary of State Arthur James Balfour . He then succeeded William Cavendish-Bentinck, 6th Duke of Portland in 1919 as Lord Lieutenant and thus as the personal representative of the British monarch in the Scottish county of Caithness . In 1919 he was at times also a member of the Imperial Marketing Board . He held this post for 45 years until he was replaced by George David Keith Murray in 1964. At the same time, he was private secretary to Colonial Secretary Winston Churchill from 1921 to 1922 .

In the election of November 15, 1922 , Sinclair was first elected to the Liberal Party as a member of the House of Commons and represented the constituency of Caithness and Sutherland in this until July 5, 1945 . For his services, he was also Companion of the Order of St. Michael and St. George (CMG) in 1922 . During his membership in parliament he was chairman of the committees of the lower house from 1925 to 1930 and, as successor to Robert Hutchison from 1930 until his replacement by Goronwy Owen in 1931, parliamentary manager of the parliamentary group of the Liberal Party in the lower house (Chief Liberal Whip ) . He was then on August 25, 1931 as successor to William Adamson Minister for Scotland (Secretary of State for Scotland) . He held this ministerial office until September 28, 1932, after which he was replaced by Godfrey Collins . He also became in 1931 a member of the Secret Privy Council ( Privy council ) . In addition, he took over from Herbert Samuel on November 4, 1931, the role of deputy chairman of the Liberal Party, which he held until November 26, 1935.

Chairman of the Liberal Party, Minister of Aviation and Member of the House of Lords

On November 26, 1935, Sinclair replaced Herbert Samuel as chairman of the Liberal Party . He held this position for almost ten years until June 15, 1945, when he passed it on to Clement Davies . In addition, he was the successor to Dick Sheppard between 1938 and his replacement by John Boyd Orr in 1945 and rector of the University of Glasgow . After Great Britain entered the Second World War , he succeeded Samuel Hoare as Secretary of State for Air on May 11, 1940 and held this post throughout the war, before being replaced by Harold Macmillan on May 23, 1945 at the end of the war has been. His staff as Minister of Aviation included Reginald Maudling , Wilfrid Roberts and Geoffrey Mander , who acted as his private secretaries. After a one-on-one conversation, Air Chief Marshal Hugh Dowding was recalled as commander of RAF Fighter Command during the Battle of Britain in October 1940 due to the Big Wing controversy . On May 10, 1941, around a year after entering the war, Adolf Hitler's deputy , Rudolf Hess , landed in Great Britain, who shortly afterwards met the Lord Steward of the Household Douglas Douglas-Hamilton, 14th Duke of Hamilton . Hess wanted to negotiate a separate peace and erroneously assumed that the Duke, who had visited Berlin in 1936 during the Olympic Games , was a main representative of a group in the United Kingdom that opposed Prime Minister Winston Churchill and was ready to make a peace agreement . In order to camouflage himself, Hess initially presented himself as "Alfred Horn, a friend of the Scottish Duke" and only revealed his true identity and intent to Douglas-Hamilton personally. However, this informed Churchill, whereupon Hess was arrested by the British authorities. A few days later the Duke had to justify himself to the House of Commons and explain whether he had ever had contact with Hess before. He had Aviation Minister Sinclair explain that he had not known Rudolf Hess personally before, had no connection with him and could not immediately identify him as the Führer’s deputy . In 1941, he was a knight of the Order of the Thistle (Knight of the Thistle) . In 1946 he took over the newly created function as President of the Scottish Liberal Party and held it until he was replaced by Andrew Murray in 1961.

Sinclair was raised on April 10, 1952 as Viscount Thurso , of Ulbster in the County of Caithness, to the hereditary nobility of the Peerage of the United Kingdom and was thus a member of the House of Lords until his death in 1970.

His marriage to Marigold Forbes, a daughter of Lieutenant Colonel James Stewart Forbes and his first wife, Lady Angela Selina Bianca St Clair-Erskine, on May 18, 1918 resulted in two daughters and two sons. His third child and eldest son Robin Macdonald Sinclair inherited his title as 2nd Viscount Thurso when he died on June 15, 1970. One of his granddaughters is the politician Veronica Linklater, Baroness Linklater of Butterstone .

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predecessor Office successor
New title created Viscount Thurso
1952-1970 		Robin Sinclair
personal data
SURNAME Sinclair, Archibald, 1st Viscount Thurso
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Sinclair, Archibald Henry Macdonald, 1st Viscount Thurso (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British Liberal Party politician, MP and peer
DATE OF BIRTH October 22, 1890
PLACE OF BIRTH Chelsea , London
DATE OF DEATH June 15, 1970