Robert Carr

The Right Honourable
The Lord Carr of Hadley
PC
The Right Honourable The Lord Carr of Hadley PC
	Formal portrait, 1951
Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer
	In office; 4 March 1974 – 11 February 1975
Leader	Edward Heath
Preceded by	Denis Healey
Succeeded by	Geoffrey Howe
Prime Minister	In office; 18 July 1972 – 4 March 1974
Ministerial offices
Home Secretary
	In office; 18 July 1972 – 4 March 1974
Prime Minister	Edward Heath
Preceded by	Reginald Maudling
Succeeded by	Roy Jenkins
Lord President of the Council; Leader of the House of Commons;
	In office; 7 April 1972 – 5 November 1972
Prime Minister	Edward Heath
Preceded by	William Whitelaw
Succeeded by	Jim Prior
Secretary of State for Employment
	In office; 20 June 1970 – 7 April 1972
Prime Minister	Edward Heath
Preceded by	Barbara Castle
Succeeded by	Maurice Macmillan
Preceded by	In office; 28 February 1974 – 15 January 1976
Parliamentary representation
Member of Parliament; for Carshalton
	In office; 28 February 1974 – 15 January 1976
Preceded by	Walter Elliot
Succeeded by	Nigel Forman
Member of Parliament; for Mitcham
	In office; 23 February 1950 – 8 February 1974
Preceded by	Tom Braddock
Succeeded by	Constituency abolished
Member of the House of Lords; Lord Temporal
	In office; 15 January 1976 – 17 February 2012; Life peerage
Personal details
Born	Leonard Robert Carr; 11 November 1916; North Finchley, Middlesex, England
Died	17 February 2012 (aged 95); Alderley Edge, Cheshire, England
Political party	Conservative
Spouse	Joan Twining (m. 1943)
Children	3
Education	Westminster School
Alma mater	Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge

Leonard Robert Carr, Baron Carr of Hadley, PC (11 November 1916 – 17 February 2012) was a British Conservative Party politician who served as Home Secretary from 1972 to 1974. He served as a Member of Parliament (MP) for 26 years, and later served in the House of Lords as a life peer.

Background

Leonard Robert Carr was born in North Finchley on 11 November 1916.^[1] He was educated at Westminster School^[2] and Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, where he read Natural Sciences, graduating in 1938. After graduation he applied his knowledge of metallurgy at John Dale & Co, the family metal engineering firm.^[2] A collapsed lung kept him from war service but his firm specialised in the construction of airframes for Lancaster bombers.^[3]

In 1943, Carr married Joan Twining, and they had a son and two daughters. Their son, David, died in a traffic accident in 1965.^[1]

Political career

Carr first sought the Conservative nomination in Barnet ahead of the 1950 election, but lost to Reginald Maudling.^[1] He was instead elected Member of Parliament for Mitcham in 1950 and served there until 1974, when the seat was merged and he moved to Carshalton.^[1] He was a parliamentary private secretary to Anthony Eden from to 1951 to 1955, and a parliamentary secretary to the labour ministry after Eden became prime minister.^[1]

Carr was a supporter of the European Economic Community, and was amiable to Edward Heath's election as Conservative Party leader in 1965, even though he had supported Maudling.^[1] When Heath became prime minister in 1970, he served as Secretary of State for Employment and was responsible for the modernising Industrial Relations Act 1971, which balanced the introduction of compensation for unfair dismissal with curbs on the freedom to strike and the virtual abolition of closed shop agreements. The Industrial Relations Act 1971 was deeply disliked by trade unions, whose industrial action lead to the three-day week and ultimately to the defeat of the Heath government.^[1] The victorious Labour Party promptly repealed the Industrial Relations Act and replaced it with the Trade Union and Labour Relations Act 1974, which scrapped the "offensive" provisions but effectively re-enacted the remainder of Carr's 1971 Act.

In 1971, Carr escaped injury when The Angry Brigade anarchist group exploded two bombs outside his house.^[4] More than thirty years later, a member of the group issued a public apology to Carr and sent him a Christmas card.^[5]

In 1972, Carr served a brief period as Lord President of the Council and then was appointed Home Secretary following Reginald Maudling's resignation. Following Heath's defeat in the first ballot of the 1975 Conservative leadership contest, he asked Carr to "take over the functions of leader" until a new leader was elected.^[6] The day after her election the new leader, Margaret Thatcher met with Carr, according to her at his request, before she formed shadow cabinet. According to her memoirs, Carr had been close to Heath and so she would have understood "if he did not relish the prospect of serving under" her. She stated that Carr made it clear that the only post that he would accept would be that of Shadow Foreign Secretary. She told him that she could not promise that and confided in her memoirs that at that stage, she was still considering appointments and was "not convinced" that she would offer Carr any role in the shadow cabinet. She proceeded to appoint Maudling as Shadow Foreign Secretary and saw Carr again later to inform him of her decision. In her memoirs, she speculated that Carr might have been "persuaded to stay in another capacity" but did not offer him the chance and noted, "I was not keen to have another strong opponent in any position on the team".^[7]

In 1975, Carr co-founded the Tory Reform Group.^[1]

Later life

Carr was created a life peer as Baron Carr of Hadley, of Monken Hadley in Greater London, in 1976.^[8] He served on the board for a number of companies, including Cadbury Schweppes, Prudential Assurance (which he chaired from 1980 to 1985), and Securicor.^[1] From 1985 to 1986, he was president of the Surrey County Cricket Club.^[1]

Carr died from bronchopneumonia at a nursing home in Alderley Edge, Cheshire, 17 February 2012, at the age of 95.^[1] His body was buried in the graveyard of St. Peter's Church in Farmington, Gloucestershire. He was survived by his wife, Joan, and two daughters.^[9]

References

^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h ⁱ ^j ^k Garnett, Mark (2016). "Carr, (Leonard) Robert, Baron Carr of Hadley (1916–2012), politician and businessman". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/104651. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
^ ^a ^b Goodman, Geoffrey (20 February 2012). "Lord Carr of Hadley obituary". The Guardian. Retrieved 24 February 2012.
^ "Lord Carr of Hadley obituary". the Guardian. 20 February 2012. Retrieved 29 July 2021.
^ "1971: British minister's home bombed". On This Day 1950–2005. BBC News. 6 December 1972. Retrieved 22 August 2011.
^ Bright, Martin (3 February 2002). "Angry Brigade's bomb plot apology". The Observer. London. Retrieved 22 August 2011.
^ The Times. No. 59312. London. 5 February 1975. col A, p. 1. {{cite news}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
^ Thatcher, Margaret (2013). Margaret Thatcher the Autobiography. London: Harper Press. pp. 176–179. ISBN 978-0-00-742528-0.
^ "No. 46803". The London Gazette. 20 January 1976. p. 919.
^ "Lord Carr of Hadley". The Daily Telegraph. 19 February 2012. Archived from the original on 19 April 2012. Retrieved 12 August 2013.

Bibliography

Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs

External links

Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Robert Carr
Portraits of Robert Carr at the National Portrait Gallery, London

Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by Tom Braddock	Member of Parliament for Mitcham 1950–1974	Constituency abolished
Preceded by Walter Elliot	Member of Parliament for Carshalton 1974–1976	Succeeded by Nigel Forman
Political offices
Preceded by Barbara Castle as Secretary of State for Employment and Productivity	Secretary of State for Employment 1970–1972	Succeeded by Maurice Macmillan
Preceded by William Whitelaw	Lord President of the Council 1972	Succeeded by Jim Prior
Preceded by William Whitelaw	Leader of the House of Commons 1972	Succeeded by Jim Prior
Preceded by Reginald Maudling	Home Secretary 1972–1974	Succeeded by Roy Jenkins

[ODNB-1] ^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h ⁱ ^j ^k Garnett, Mark (2016). "Carr, (Leonard) Robert, Baron Carr of Hadley (1916–2012), politician and businessman". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/104651. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)

[Guardian-2] Goodman, Geoffrey (20 February 2012). "Lord Carr of Hadley obituary". The Guardian. Retrieved 24 February 2012.

[3] "Lord Carr of Hadley obituary". the Guardian. 20 February 2012. Retrieved 29 July 2021.

[4] "1971: British minister's home bombed". On This Day 1950–2005. BBC News. 6 December 1972. Retrieved 22 August 2011.

[5] Bright, Martin (3 February 2002). "Angry Brigade's bomb plot apology". The Observer. London. Retrieved 22 August 2011.

[6] The Times. No. 59312. London. 5 February 1975. col A, p. 1. {{cite news}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)

[ThatcherAuto176-79-7] Thatcher, Margaret (2013). Margaret Thatcher the Autobiography. London: Harper Press. pp. 176–179. ISBN 978-0-00-742528-0.

[8] "No. 46803". The London Gazette. 20 January 1976. p. 919.

[9] "Lord Carr of Hadley". The Daily Telegraph. 19 February 2012. Archived from the original on 19 April 2012. Retrieved 12 August 2013.

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v t e Parliamentary Private Secretaries to the Prime Minister
Prime Minister's Office
to Henry Campbell-Bannerman	Carr-Gomm 1906–1908
to H. H. Asquith	Howard 1908–1909 Lyell 1908–1915
to David Lloyd George	Barran 1916–1918 D. Davies 1916–1918 Sutherland 1916–1918, 1919–1920 Astor 1918 Sassoon 1920–1922
to Bonar Law	Davidson 1922–1923
to Stanley Baldwin	Herbert 1923–1924, 1924–1927 Rhys 1927–1929 Geoffery-Lloyd 1935 Dugdale 1935–1937
to Ramsay MacDonald	Weir 1924, 1929–1931 R. Morrison 1929–1931 Markham 1931–1932 Glyn 1931–1935 Worthington 1931–1935
to Neville Chamberlain	Douglas-Home 1937–1940
to Winston Churchill	Bracken 1940–1941 Harvie-Watt 1941–1945 Soames 1952–1955
to Clement Attlee	de Freitas 1945–1946 Moyle 1946–1951
to Anthony Eden	Carr 1955 Allan 1955–1956
to Harold Macmillan	Barber 1957–1959 K. Cunningham 1959–1963
to Alec Douglas-Home	Pearson 1963–1964
to Harold Wilson	Fernyhough 1964–1967 Shore 1965–1966 H. Davies 1967–1970 Varley 1968–1969 Hamling 1974–1975 Marks 1975 Tomlinson 1975–1976
to Edward Heath	Kitson 1970–1974
to James Callaghan	J. Cunningham 1976–1977 Stott 1977–1979
to Margaret Thatcher	Gow 1979–1983 Alison 1983–1987 Hamilton 1987–1988 Lennox-Boyd 1988–1990 P. Morrison 1990
to John Major	Bright 1990–1994 Ward 1994–1997
to Tony Blair	Coffey 1997–1998 Grocott 1997–2001 Hanson 2001–2005 Hill 2005–2007
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