Spencer Le Marchant Explained

Sir Spencer Le Marchant
Office:Comptroller of the Household
Primeminister:Margaret Thatcher
Term Start:7 May 1979
Term End:30 September 1981
Predecessor:James Hamilton
Successor:Anthony Berry
Office2:Member of Parliament
for High Peak
Term Start2:18 June 1970
Term End2:9 June 1983
Predecessor2:Peter Jackson
Successor2:Christopher Hawkins
Birth Date:15 January 1931
Birth Place:Edmonton, London, England
Death Place:Isle of Wight, England
Party:Conservative

Sir Spencer Le Marchant (15 January 1931 – 7 September 1986) was a British Conservative Party politician.

Early life

Born in Edmonton, London, Le Marchant was educated at Eton College and was a member of the London Stock Exchange. He served as a councillor on Westminster City Council from 1956.

Political career

Le Marchant unsuccessfully contested Vauxhall, a London safe seat held by the Labour Party's George Strauss since its formation in 1950, at the 1966 general election. He was elected to the House of Commons as Member of Parliament for the marginal Derbyshire constituency of High Peak at the 1970 general election, and held the seat until he retired from Parliament at the 1983 general election. He was appointed Comptroller of the Household when Margaret Thatcher came to power in 1979.

Le Marchant received note in Thatcher's memoirs as "famous for his intake of champagne", 6 foot and 6 inches tall, and "could be heard booming out the result" when the then Labour government lost a motion of no confidence by one vote, causing the 1979 general election.

Later life

Le Marchant retired from the House of Commons at the 1983 general election, and died at the age of 55 in 1986 on the Isle of Wight.

Personal life

In 1955 he married Lucinda Gaye Leveson-Gower, daughter of Brigadier General Hugh Nugent Leveson-Gower, RA and his first wife, Avril Joy Mullens (later fourth wife of Ernest Aldrich Simpson, himself the second husband of Wallis, Duchess of Windsor, whose love affair with King Edward VIII led to the 1936 abdication crisis).

In 2006, Michael Brown, a former Conservative MP from 1979 to 1997, stated that Le Marchant had tried unsuccessfully to seduce him.[1] According to former-MP-turned-journalist Matthew Parris, Le Marchant was a "repressed homosexual".[2]

References

Notes and References

  1. News: They take risks – and how! – which is why we need our gay MPs and their scandals . Daily Telegraph . 29 January 2006 . Michael . Brown . 23 October 2013.
  2. News: If whips have gone rogue the PM is to blame . Matthew . Parris . 21 January 2022 . Matthew Parris . The Times . 20 May 2024.