The 13th Marquess of Lothian, PC, KC, DL, who died 1 October, 2024, aged 79, was the first Catholic to become a Scottish Conservative MP; better known as Michael Ancram, he was also one of the architects of peace in Northern Ireland and went on to serve as party chairman under William Hague and deputy leader to Iain Duncan Smith and Michael Howard. Ancram won and lost two Scottish seats before his election in 1992 for Devizes, which he continued to represent after succeeding to his title in 2004. He stood down in 2010.
A most unstuffy grandee, Ancram was a member of the British ski team, and a folk singer who had busked his way round Italy as a student. For Malcolm Rifkind’s 50th birthday party he impersonated Buddy Holly, and at William Hague’s much ridiculed 1997 Shadow Cabinet “bonding session” at Eastbourne, he accompanied a singalong Bridge Over Troubled Water on acoustic guitar.
Michael Andrew Foster Jude Kerr was born 7 July, 1945, the son of the 12th Marquess of Lothian, KCVO (1922-2004) and the former Antonella Newland (1922-2007), daughter of Maj Gen Sir Foster Reuss Newland KCMG CB (1862-1943), of Ditchingham Hall, co. Norfolk, by his wife Donna Nenella Salazar y Munatones, dau. of Conte Michele Salazar.
He was educated at Ampleforth, in Switzerland, at Christ Church, Oxford (where he was a pillar of the Bullingdon Club), and Edinburgh University, where he took an LLB, becoming an advocate in 1970. He was a founder of the Thistle Group, advocating a federal Britain. As the heir to a Marquessate, he was entitled to style himself the Earl of Ancram. Initially, he did, until as a young advocate he found judges addressing him as “my Lord”.
In February 1974 he was elected for Berwickshire & East Lothian, ousting Labour’s Professor John Mackintosh by 540 votes despite a national swing to Labour. That October, Mackintosh won the seat back. By the time Mackintosh died in 1978 and a by-election was called, Ancram – now vice-chairman of the Scottish party – had been adopted for Edinburgh South, where the sitting Tory was retiring.
At the 1979 election Ancram fought off the young Gordon Brown, holding the seat by 2,460 votes. He joined the Energy Select Committee, and from 1980 chaired the Scottish party. He joined Margaret Thatcher’s government after the 1983 election as Parliamentary Under-Secretary at the Scottish Office.
In October 1984 he survived the IRA’s bombing of the Grand Hotel at Brighton. He was in bed when the bomb exploded; rubble blocked the fire escape and it took him some time to get out – discovering three close friends had died.
Michael Ancram became a board member of Scottish Homes. He also chaired Waverley Housing, which managed 1,100 homes, then bought them from Scottish Homes for as little as £1 each. The Public Accounts Committee later ruled the relationship “improper”; Ancram had had no financial interest in it, however.
As Tory fortunes waned in Scotland, Ancram tried for Kensington & Chelsea and Rutland & Melton before being adopted for Devizes, inheriting Charles Morrison’s 20,000 majority; he would champion the constituency’s strong military connections in the House.
Returning to the Commons in 1992, he joined the Public Accounts Committee and chaired the Conservative backbench constitutional committee. He tried to shore up Norman Lamont as Chancellor after “Black Wednesday”, and urged Tories to have the “courage” to support John Major over Maastricht.
Within a year he was back in government, as Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Northern Ireland under Patrick Mayhew; Number 10 called while he was ski-ing at Davos.
After the Conservatives’ rout in 1997 Ancram backed Hague for the leadership, and became constitutional affairs spokesman as Tony Blair’s government launched its devolution plans and flirted with proportional representation. He accused New Labour of “undermining our constitution in a cynical attempt to consolidate its hold on power”. He became deputy party chairman, then in 1998 chairman. He inherited low morale in the constituencies, and at Central Office following “downsizing” by the party’s chief executive, Archie Norman.
He chaired the Conservatives into the 2001 election, when the party suffered as bad a mauling as four years before. The result was blamed in part on Hague and Ancram turning the election into a referendum on the euro, which in the event Blair’s government never joined.
When Hague stood down Ancram went for the leadership, pledging “a strong, united party with radical policies that will make a difference”. In the first ballot in June 2001, he and David Davis finished joint last with 21 MPs’ votes, against 49 for Michael Portillo, 39 for Duncan Smith and 36 for Kenneth Clarke.
Party rules made no provision for a tie, so a fresh ballot was ordered. This time Ancram polled 17 to Davis’s 18. He then backed Duncan Smith, who overtook Portillo to clinch the leadership.
Appointed deputy leader and Shadow Foreign Secretary, Ancram castigated Labour’s “shameful inaction” over human rights abuses by Robert Mugabe, and scorned the proposed European Constitution.
When Duncan Smith was forced out in 2003, Ancram was the first senior Tory to commit to Howard, and stayed deputy leader. In the 2005 election his campaigning contributed to the Conservatives finally regaining some ground.
Ancram stayed on, pending the election of David Cameron late that year as Howard’s successor. He also became Shadow Defence Secretary, increasingly critical of Britain’s military presence in Iraq. He returned to the back benches the following year, joining the Intelligence and Security Committee, and in 2010 he left the Commons with a peerage, as Baron Kerr of Monteviot.
Ancram’s elder daughter, Lady Clare, suffered from ME/CFS, until she was successfully treated at the Breakspear Hospital in Hertfordshire. In 2004 he launched the Breakspear Hospital Trust.
He became a Scottish QC in 1996, and deputy lieutenant for Roxburgh, Ettrick and Lauderdale in 1990. He succeeded his father, 11 October, 2004, as 13th Marquess of Lothian, 14th Earl of Lothian, 15th Earl of Ancram, 13th Viscount of Briene, 16th Lord Jedburgh, 14th Lord Newbottle, 15th Lord Kerr of Nisbet, Longnewtoun and Dolphinstoun, 13th Lord Ker of Newbottle, Oxnam, Jedburgh, Dolphinstoun and Nisbet, and 8th Baron Ker, of Kershaugh in the County of Roxburgh.
He was created a life peer in 2010 as Baron Kerr of Monteviot, of Monteviot in Roxburghshire.
As Earl of Ancram he married 7 June, 1975, the Lady Theresa Jane Fitzalan-Howard (born 24 January, 1945), younger daughter of the 16th Duke of Norfolk, KG, GCVO, GBE (1908-75), and his wife the Hon Lavinia Mary Strutt, LG, CBE (who died 1995).
His wife succeeded to the Lordship of Herries of Terregles, 7 April, 2017, inheriting the title from her elder sister. They had three daughters, Lady Sarah Margaret (born and died 13 June, 1976), Lady Clare Therese (born 25 January, 1979), heir to her mother's peerage, and Lady Mary Cecil (born 1981).
He is succeeded as 14th Marquess by his brother, Lord Ralph William Francis Joseph Kerr, born 7 November, 1957. The 14th Marquess lives at the family seat, Ferniehurst Castle, Jedburgh, Roxburghshire, and Melbourne Hall, Derby. He married 5 March, 1988, Marie-Clare Black, 2nd daughter of (Michael) Donald Gordon Black, MC (1932-2009), by his wife the former Priscilla M.A. Holt (born 1937). They have four sons and two daughters.
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