The Right Honourable
The Lord Maude of Stratford-upon-Avon
TD PC
Paymaster General
In office
4 May 1979 – 5 January 1981
Prime MinisterMargaret Thatcher
Preceded byShirley Williams
Succeeded byFrancis Pym
Member of Parliament
for Stratford-on-Avon
In office
15 August 1963 – 13 May 1983
Preceded byJohn Profumo
Succeeded byAlan Howarth
Member of Parliament
for Ealing South
In office
23 February 1950 – 18 April 1958
Preceded byConstituency created
Succeeded byBrian Batsford
Personal details
Born(1912-09-08)8 September 1912
Hendon, Middlesex, England
Died9 November 1993(1993-11-09) (aged 81)
Banbury, Oxfordshire, England
Political partyConservative
Spouse
Barbara Sutcliffe
​
(m. 1946)​
Children3, including Francis
Alma materOriel College, Oxford

Angus Edmund Upton Maude, Baron Maude of Stratford-upon-Avon, TD, PC (8 September 1912 – 9 November 1993) was a British Conservative Party politician. A Member of Parliament (MP) from 1950 to 1958 and from 1963 to 1983, he served as a cabinet minister from 1979 to 1981. He was the father of former Conservative MP Francis Maude.[1]

Early life

Maude was born at 44 Temple Fortune Lane, Hendon, Middlesex, the only child of Alan Hamer Maude (1885–1979), journalist and army officer, and Dorothy Maude Upton, daughter of Frederic Upton, a civil servant.[2] He was educated, mainly in Classics, at Rugby School, then attended Oriel College, Oxford, where he obtained a second-class degree in Politics, Philosophy and Economics in 1933.[2] He became a journalist and author, working on The Times (1933–34) and the Daily Mail (1934–39).[2]

Maude fought in the Second World War. He was captured in North Africa, becoming a POW in Italy. He was later moved to Germany, where he was freed by forces under General George S. Patton.

Parliamentary career

Maude was elected Conservative Party Member of Parliament for Ealing South at the 1950 general election. He continued to work in journalism, and was Director of the Conservative Political Centre from 1951 to 1955. In 1958, he resigned his seat[3] to become editor of The Sydney Morning Herald, a post which he held until 1961. He attempted to return to Parliament, at first being beaten by the Labour Party's Guy Barnett by 704 votes in a 1962 by-election at South Dorset, where the Conservative vote was split. He was then elected to represent the constituency of Stratford-on-Avon in a a by-election in 1963, where he remained until retiring in 1983.

Maude was shadow aviation spokesman, but was sacked in 1967 by Edward Heath after criticising party policy. When Margaret Thatcher became leader, she brought him back into the fold after he played a key role in her bid for the leadership in 1975. When she came to power in May 1979, he was appointed to the position of Paymaster General with a seat in the cabinet, with Thatcher saying "I was anxious to have Angus Maude in the Cabinet to benefit from his years of political experience, his sound views, and his acid wit."[4] However, Maude resigned relatively soon afterward, in January 1981, following which he received a knighthood.[5]

House of Lords

Maude gave up his seat at the 1983 general election, and was elevated to the House of Lords as a life peer on 19 September 1983, taking the title Baron Maude of Stratford-upon-Avon, of Stratford-upon-Avon in the County of Warwickshire.[6] He died in 1993.

He was nicknamed "The Mekon" because of his prominent forehead and overbearing manner.[7]

Writings

In 1955 Maude co-authored a book "The Biography of a Nation" with fellow Conservative MP, Enoch Powell.

  • Powell, Enoch; Maude, Angus (1970) [1955]. Biography of a Nation (second ed.). London. ISBN 0-212-98373-3.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)

References

  1. ↑ Cosgrave, Patrick (11 November 1993). "Obituary: Lord Maude of Stratford-upon-Avon". The Independent. Retrieved 21 April 2022.
  2. 1 2 3 Garnett, Mark (2004). "Maude, Angus Edmund Upton, Baron Maude of Stratford upon Avon (1912–1993), journalist and politician". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/44629. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  3. ↑ "No. 41369". The London Gazette. 22 April 1958. p. 2539.
  4. ↑ Margaret Thatcher, The Downing Street Years (HarperCollins, 1993), p. 29.
  5. ↑ "No. 48542". The London Gazette. 3 March 1981. p. 3087.
  6. ↑ "No. 49486". The London Gazette. 22 September 1983. p. 12397.
  7. ↑ Young, Hugo, The Hugo Young Papers: Thirty Years of British Politics – Off the Record
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