Robert Lindsay: Fife peer who became leading Conservative politician dies

Robert Lindsay, a senior Scottish peer who became the youngest member of the House of Commons, has died aged 96.

A Conservative, he was elected in 1955 aged 28 and served until the second General Election of 1974.

Thereafter, he was created a life peer and, as Lord Balniel, sat in the House of Lords alongside his father.

Robert Lindsay, who was the 29th Earl of Crawford and 12th Earl of Balcarres, with his family seat in Fife, later served as a director of National Westminster Bank, and as lord chamberlain to both the Queen Mother and the late Queen.

Love of Fife

Much of his time in later years was spent at Balcarres where he planted several woods on the 5,000 seat estate of the Lindsays, of which he was clan chief.

Robert Alexander Lindsay, known as Robin, was born in London in 1927.

His father, David, had sat in the House of Commons and his paternal grandfather served in the First World War coalition cabinets. His mother, Mary, was the niece of the Duke of Devonshire.

Robin was educated at Cothill school in Oxfordshire and Eton and joined the army three months before his 18th birthday at the end of the Second World War.

Army life

He served with the Grenadier Guards until 1948, much of his time spent in Palestine.

When he returned to civilian life, he read history at Trinity College, Cambridge, and met his future wife, Ruth Meyer-Bechtler, at an art history school in Italy.

They married in her native Switzerland  in 1949 and went on to have four children, Bettina, Iona, Anthony and Alexander.

Diplomacy

When he left university, he served a spell as honorary attache to the British Embassy in Paris and then followed his father and grandfather into politics.

After a period in the Conservative Research Department, he was elected MP for Hertford in 1955, took a keen interest in health matters and was appointed to the shadow cabinet by Ted Heath in 1967.

When the Conservatives won the 1970 General Election, Heath appointed him defence minister under Lord Carrington, just as troops were being deployed in Northern Ireland.

Two years later he moved to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office under Sir Alec Douglas-Home.

After boundary changes in 1974 he had to defend the marginal seat of Welwyn Hatfield. He won but in the second General Election of the year he lost by 520 votes.

It was then he joined National Westminster Bank, worked for the Crown Estate and joined the royal household.

The Earl of Crawford was a Knight of the Thistle, served as chairman of the National Library of Scotland, the Royal Commission on Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland, and the Historic Buildings Council of Scotland.

His wife, the Countess of Crawford died in 2021 after 72 years of marriage.

A private funeral is planned with a memorial service at a later date.

You can read the family’s announcement here.