| Notes |
--- "The Times (London)" 15 Feb 1919, page 1:
PEYTON.--- On the 13th Feb., at 6, Berkeley-street, Dorothy Helen, wife of Ivor Eliot Peyton, of a son.
---- "The Guardian" 26 Nov 2006:
Lord Peyton of Yeovil
Former Conservative Minister, He Stood Against Thatcher for the Tory Leadership
by John Biffen
Lord Peyton of Yeovil, who has died aged 87, was a former Conservative minister of transport industries (1970-74) under Edward Heath, and MP for Yeovil from 1959 to 1983. He was a man who relished controversy rather than consensus, and thus he might have settled for the role of backbench gadfly, but instead he aspired to high ministerial office. He unsuccessfully stood against Margaret Thatcher for the Tory leadership in 1975 and his failure to be included in her cabinet from 1979 was a great disappointment to him. This he did not hide, but he bore it with a commendable lack of rancour. Peyton was educated at Eton and Trinity College, Oxford. At that point, he showed only a modest interest in politics, confessing: "I became overfond of racing." He joined the supplementary reserve of the 15/19 Hussars, and, with the onset of the second world war, was despatched to France. He was taken prisoner in Belgium in 1940, an experience he graphically described in his autobiography Without Benefit of Laundry (1997). His younger brother was killed in action at St Nazaire in 1942.
As a prisoner, he studied law, and, after the war made tentative steps in pursuing a legal career, but the attractions of politics proved stronger. In the 1950 general election, he unsuccessfully fought the Labour stronghold of Bristol Central, but in 1951 won Yeovil. His first decade at Westminster was spent on the backbenches. He was a natural "below the gangway" politician, with an eye for the political jugular and an acerbic wit. From there, he became the parliamentary private secretary to Nigel Birch, a junior defence minister, a match in style. He joined the government in 1962 as parliamentary secretary to the minister of power but this spell in office was terminated by Labour's general election victory in 1964.
He next took office in 1970 with the general election victory of Heath. He was initially appointed minister of transport, but after six months the post was renamed ministry of transport industries. It was a change in name rather than in function, and it was the kind of gobbledygook that irritated Peyton. He was confronted by a railway system that was dilapidated and under-capitalised, a road network that was outstripped by vehicle growth, and ports that were bedevilled by restrictive practices. He yearned for the transport reforms that were eventually carried out by Conservative ministers after 1979.
In minor matters, however, Peyton was able to indicate his implicit radicalism. In 1971, Thomas Cook, British Rail's travel agency, was denationalised. He insisted that a white paper on port finances be reduced from an initial 100 pages to less than five - a modest matter but within Whitehall a triumph. Peyton's greatest claim to ministerial fame was his dispassionate view of nationalised industry executives and his determination to leave them relatively free from political supervision.
After the Conservatives' election defeat in February 1974, Heath offered him the novel post of shadow leader of the house. Peyton enthusiastically played the aggressive role that Heath had assigned to him. Nevertheless, he had only a modest time to develop his skills before prime minister Harold Wilson increased his majority in October 1974, and the Conservatives subsequently arranged a leadership election. Peyton stood at the second ballot when Thatcher, who had already despatched Heath on the first vote, defeated all candidates. There was puzzlement as to why Peyton should have stood. Unlike fellow contestants, Geoffrey Howe and James Prior, he had no cabinet experience; and unlike William Whitelaw, another contestant, he had no traditional constituency within the parliamentary party. The gesture, although heroic, did not promote Peyton's reputation. He obtained 11 votes and was bottom of the poll. His behaviour was seen as the tactics of a maverick.
Thatcher offered him the post of agriculture in her shadow cabinet. He loyally carried out this task; but the man and the post were not an ideal partnership. Peyton was too honest to accommodate the special pleading that dominates agricultural politics. On the other hand, his determination to end the distortions of the "green" pound were generally approved by farmers.
The Conservative election in 1979 was an acutely unhappy episode for Peyton. All other members of the shadow cabinet were confirmed in office; he alone was excluded. He made public his disappointment, but he was as good as his word in disavowing any plans to be an embittered backbench critic. He was sent to the Lords in 1983, from where he frequently questioned the wisdom of the Commons.
Peyton also managed to pursue other activities. He was chairman of the British subsidiary of the American company Texas Instruments (1974-90) and of British Alcan Aluminium (1987-91).
As treasurer of the Zoological Society of London (1984-91), which is responsible for London Zoo and Whipsnade wild animal park, there was much public interest, and rancour, over measures needed to repair the society's finances. Peyton was much concerned that these should be put on a sound footing and that this would require government financial assistance. Eventually, Peyton, and others, RESIgned when efforts failed to bring about fiscal realism.
Peyton was an essentially private person. Few realised the extent of his grief at the loss of his brother, and later, the childhood death of one of his sons. He may not have succeeded in the quest for political office, but there can be no doubt about the impact of his craggy individualism, a quality he brought to Westminster. Interestingly, he opposed capital punishment.
He is survived by his second wife, Mary, whom he married in 1966, and by the son and daughter of his first marriage.
· John Wynne William Peyton (Lord Peyton of Yeovil), politician, born February 13 1919; died November 22 2006
---- Obituary in "The Times" 24 Nov 2006
Tory minister who advised Edward Heath to go like a good sport after his defeat by Margaret Thatcher
John Peyton was one of the four senior Conservatives present when Edward Heath was told the result of the first ballot for the Conservative leadership in February 1975. When asked what action Heath, unexpectedly beaten into second place by Margaret Thatcher, should take, Peyton said that, though the British had differing views about winners, they admired good losers.
When Heath withdrew, Peyton was one of those who was persuaded to enter the second ballot, a decision he regretted, since he came bottom of the poll, gaining only 11.
Although Peyton served in Margaret Thatcher?s Shadow Cabinet for four years, he was the only opposition spokesman not to become a minister in May 1979, not surprisingly as his contributions had not always been from the Thatcher hymn sheet. In January 1973, during a discussion on two policy documents, Peyton said that Conservatives should be ?against appeasement and confrontation, but there had to be a third way?, a pre-echo of later Blairite sentiments.
Disappointed at his rejection, he told the whips that he intended to change his name to Cinderella and obey the Fairy Godmother?s instructions not to stay out too late.
Thereafter he concentrated on his business career, leaving the Commons at the general election of 1983, when he became a life peer. His seat at Yeovil, which he had held for 32 years, was lost to Paddy Ashdown, the future Liberal Democrat leader.
John Wynne William Peyton was born in 1919 and educated at Eton, where, as a member of the OTC, he was in the honour guard within the grounds of Windsor Castle at the state funeral of King George V in 1936.
In 1937 he went up to Trinity College, Oxford, to read law. He dabbled in university politics and spoke at the Union, then under the presidency of Edward Heath. But in the summer of 1939 he sought a commission in the l5th/l9th Hussars. Going abroad with the British Expeditionary Force, he was captured in Belgium in May 1940. (His younger brother was killed in action at St Nazaire in 1942.)
Imprisoned first at Laufen in Bavaria, he was later sent to Warburg in Westphalia. The long years were made endurable by study for his future Bar exams. In the summer of 1942 he was moved to Eichstatt in Bavaria. In the spring of 1945 a forced march to a fourth camp at Moosburg suffered casualties when Allied aircraft strafed the columns which they mistook for German formations. Soon afterwards the camp was liberated by the Americans.
He was called to the Bar at the Inner Temple and joined the chambers of Patrick Devlin. One of his first briefs was on House of Lords business, after which he was offered, but declined, the post of assistant private secretary to Lord Jowitt, the Labour Lord Chancellor.
In early 1946 he was appointed personal assistant to Walter Monckton on the eve of his tour of duty in India to prepare for the transfer of power. Peyton was at Viceroy?s House when the health of the King Emperor was drunk by Mountbatten for the last time.
On his return to England Peyton became a Lloyd?s broker and sought a Conservative candidacy. He fought the Labour stronghold of Bristol Central in the 1950 general election, and entered the Commons in October 1951 as Member for Yeovil. In 1952 he became parliamentary private secretary to Nigel Birch at the Ministry of Defence, an appropriate first step on the rung, as Westland Helicopters and the Fleet Air Arm at Yeovilton were important constituency concerns.
Seen by some as a maverick rightwinger (he was later a member of the Monday Club), Peyton was a more complex political persona than that. He was a consistent opponent of capital punishment at a time when this could lead to difficulties in Conservative constituencies.
After his spell at the Ministry of Defence, Peyton had to wait eight years for his next post, as parliamentary secretary at the Ministry of Power, in 1962. After the 1964 Tory defeat, he shadowed the post in Opposition until Edward Heath?s reshuffle in the summer of 1966.
Peyton felt that his political career was now at an end, but in 1969 Heath invited him to produce a West Country strategy document for the next election, and when the Conservatives unexpectedly won power in June 1970, he was appointed Transport Minister. The post was soon subsumed into a super-ministry in October and his job description became ?Minister for Transport Industries in the Department of the Environment?. He was sceptical of the value of such departmental integration, preferring to plough his own furrow.
In November 1970 Peyton had to deal with the aftermath of the collapse of the Mersey Docks and Harbour Port Board, and in January 1971 he announced the sale of British Rail?s travel agency, Thomas Cook. He did not sympathise with the 1971 Industry Bill and when the ?payroll ministers? were whipped to ensure victory over dissident backbenchers, Peyton?s room at the House was the scene of a desolate picnic supper attended by three unhappy ministers.
Further controversy came with Peyton?s decision to make the wearing of helmets compulsory for motorcyclists and, later, seatbelts for motorists. The Green Paper of March 1973 on the proposed Channel Tunnel was his responsibility, and he signed the initial agreement with his French counterpart. His friendship with John Betjeman, who accompanied him on some ceremonial railway events, was a feature of this time.
Another close friend was William Walton, and he generously allowed Heath to take over the 70th birthday celebrations he had been arranging for the composer, which became a semi-state function at Downing Street in the presence of the Queen Mother. When the Heath Government encountered industrial difficulties in the autumn of 1973, Peyton was a strong advocate of a pre-Christmas election. He believed, not merely with hindsight, that the February 1974 contest was a miscalculation.
After the Conservatives? second defeat in the general election of October 1974, Peyton, who had taken up business posts with Texas Instruments (of which he was UK chairman, 1974-90), Alcan Aluminium, and the London and Manchester Assurance Company, became Shadow Leader of the House of Commons, a post in which his humour and geniality were valuable assets at a difficult parliamentary time.
In February 1975 he was caught up in the dramatic events following the fall of Heath ? but he was never a serious candidate for the leadership. His place in the leader?s consultative committee was thereafter a tenuous one, and when he was made agriculture spokesman in 1976, he regarded that as one place nearer the door, which indeed closed behind him when the Conservatives returned to office in May 1979.
After leaving the Commons and entering the Lords he resumed his business career, becoming chairman of British Alcan Aluminium in 1987. He was an energetic treasurer of the Zoological Society of London, 1984-91. In 1997, Peyton published a memoir, Without Benefit of Laundry.
Peyton married in 1947 Diana Clunch, with whom he had two sons, one of whom died in childhood, and a daughter. This marriage was dissolved in 1966, and Peyton married Mary Cobbold. There were no children of his second marriage. He is survived by his wife and by a son and daughter of his first marriage.
Lord Peyton of Yeovil, politician, was born on February 13, 1919. He died on November 22, 2006, aged 87
|
1919 - 2006 (87 years)
[2] 
Married