George Younger, 4th Viscount Younger of Leckie

George Kenneth Hotson Younger, 4th Viscount Younger of Leckie KT KCVO PC (born September 22, 1931 in Gargunnock , Stirlingshire , † January 26, 2003 ibid) was a Scottish Minister of the Conservative Party .

education and profession

The son of a Scottish family with deep conservative roots first attended Winchester College and then studied at New College at the University of Oxford . In the Korean War he served in the British Army . He then worked as the manager and director of the family's brewery.

Member of the House of Commons

Younger declined to run for election in the West Perth constituency in 1963 , allowing the then Prime Minister Sir Alec Douglas-Home to be elected to the House of Commons .

In 1964 he succeeded in moving into the lower house, where he represented the constituency of Ayr until 1992 (his great-grandfather George Younger (1851–1929) represented this constituency from 1906 to 1922 in the lower house). In addition to the two other Conservative MPs Alick Buchanan-Smith and Hector Monro , the so-called trio of the "One Nation" - Conservatives for Scotland, he represented the interests partly against the opinion represented by the Tory parliamentary group as a whole.

In 1965 he was " Whip " the Scottish Conservatives and remained in this post until 1967. In the opposition period from 1974 to 1975 he was chairman of the Conservative Party in Scotland.

Member of the government

In the government of Edward Heath Younger was from 1970 to 1974 so-called "Junior Minister" in the Scotland Ministry. There he worked again with Hector Monro , who was Undersecretary of State during this time.

Under Margaret Thatcher George Younger was 1979-1986 Scotland minister (Secretary of State for Scotland). In this position he built up the Scottish Development Agency and made Scotland attractive for high technology after the collapse of traditional industries such as mining, steel and textile industries.

Margaret Thatcher then appointed him Secretary of Defense after Michael Heseltine resigned. He held this office until 1989.

Next life

After retiring from active politics in 1989, George Younger worked for the Bank of Scotland group, which he became chairman in 1992.

For his services to politics, Queen Elizabeth II raised him to Life Peer as Baron Younger of Prestwick , of Ayr in the District of Kyle and Carrick, so that he now had a seat in the House of Lords . After his father's death in 1997, he succeeded him and inherited the title of Viscount Younger of Leckie .

Web links

• Article on George Younger's death in BBC News
• George Younger, 4th Viscount Younger of Leckie in the Munzinger archive ( beginning of article freely available)

predecessor	Office	successor
Edward Younger	Viscount Younger of Leckie 1997-2003	James Younger