John Foot, Baron Foot

John Mackintosh Foot, Baron Foot (born February 17, 1909 in Pencrebar, Callington , Cornwall , † October 11, 1999 ) was an English Liberal Party politician and lawyer.

family

John Foot was the third son of Isaac Foot (1880-1960) and his wife Eva Mackintosh († 1946); the couple had a total of six children. Isaac Foot was a lawyer and active member of the Liberal Party , sat as a MP for Bodmin in Parliament before World War I, and was Lord Mayor of Plymouth after the war . The older siblings of John Foot were the lawyer Dingle Foot (1905-1978), who sat successively for the Liberal Party and the Labor Party in Parliament, and Hugh Foot (1907-1990), 1957-1960 Governor of Cyprusand then was the British representative at the UN . A younger brother was Michael Foot , later Minister of Labor . In 1935, John Foot married Anne Bailey Farr, an American , and they had a son and a daughter.

Early years

Foot studied at Balliol College , Oxford , where he was President of the Oxford Union in 1931, succeeding his older brother Dingle and preceding his younger brother Michael. Upon graduation, he joined the family law firm before serving in the Wessex Division and being promoted to major. During World War II he served at the headquarters of the 21st Army Group . After the war he worked again in his father's office and became its owner after his father's death in 1960.

Political career

According to his brother Michael, John Foot was the best speaker and "the most capable member of the family". The fact that he was not as well known as his brothers was due to the fact that he was the only one working in the family law firm, was a member of the less successful Liberal Party and was often involved locally. In 1934 he ran for the first time for the Liberals in by-elections and three times for parliament, but could never prevail against the respective conservative competitors. In November 1967 he was promoted to Life Peer with the title Baron Foot, of Buckland Monachorum in the County of Devon .

From 1970 to 1978, Foot was chairman of the UK Immigration Advisory Service , a charity that cared for refugees. He criticized the government of Harold Wilson for failing to keep promises to the people of Asian origin who were expelled from Kenya and Uganda in the 1970s . He also showed himself to be a persistent environmentalist who fought against the expansion of the city of Plymouth into the Dartmoor .

Web links

• Obituary for Lord Foot , The Guardian, October 16, 1999