# James Stuart, 1st Viscount Stuart of Findhorn

James Gray Stuart, 1st Viscount Stuart of Findhorn, CH, MVO, MC*, PC (9 February 1897 – 20 February 1971) was a British Unionist politician. He was joint-Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury in Winston Churchill's war-time coalition government and later served as Secretary of State for Scotland under Churchill and then Sir Anthony Eden from 1951 to 1957. In 1959 he was elevated to the peerage as Viscount Stuart of Findhorn.

## Early life

Born in Edinburgh, Stuart was the third and youngest son of Morton Stuart, 17th Earl of Moray, and Edith Douglas Palmer, daughter of Rear-Admiral George Palmer. He was educated at Eton College and was set to attend the University of Cambridge, but the plans were interrupted by the outbreak of World War I.

## Career

Stuart was commissioned from the Officers' Training Corps into the Special Reserve as a probationary Second lieutenant in the 3rd (Reserve) Battalion, Royal Scots (his probation completed in Jan 1915) and served in the war, reaching the rank of Captain. He was awarded the Military Cross and Bar in 1917.
He was appointed Equerry to HRH Prince Albert in June 1920, and was appointed a Member (4th Class) of the Royal Victorian Order in the 1922 New Year Honours, with the award dated 3 December 1921.

### Political career

Stuart sat as Member of Parliament (MP) for Moray and Nairn from 1923 to 1959. He served as a Lord of the Treasury from 1935 to 1941 under successively Ramsay MacDonald, Stanley Baldwin, Neville Chamberlain and Winston Churchill and was sworn of the Privy Council in the 1939 Birthday Honours. In 1941 Churchill promoted him to joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury (Government Chief Whip), which he remained until 1945. He continued as Conservative Chief Whip until 1948. In 1950 he became Chairman of the Scottish Unionist Party, a post he held until 1962.
When the Conservatives returned to power under Churchill in 1951, Stuart was made Secretary of State for Scotland, with a seat in the cabinet. He continued in this post until 1957, the last two years under the premiership of Sir Anthony Eden. He was appointed a Companion of Honour in 1957. On 20 November 1959 he was elevated to the peerage as Viscount Stuart of Findhorn, of Findhorn in the County of Moray.

## Personal life

In 1923 Stuart married Lady Rachel Cavendish, daughter of Victor Cavendish, 9th Duke of Devonshire and Lady Evelyn Petty-Fitzmaurice (a daughter of the 5th Marquess of Lansdowne). Through his marriage, he became a brother-in-law of Lady Dorothy Cavendish, who was the wife of Harold Macmillan, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1957 to 1963. Together, they had three children:
* David Randolph Moray Stuart, 2nd Viscount Stuart of Findhorn (1924−1999), who married Grizel Mary Wildreda (née Fyfe) Gillilan, widow of Michael Gillilan, daughter of architect David Theodore Fyfe, in 1945. After her death in 1948, he married Marion Emelia Wilson, a daughter of Gerald Wilson, of Kintbury, in 1951. They divorced in 1979.
* Hon. John Douglas Stuart (1925−1990), a Royal Navy lieutenant who married Cecile Margaret (née Barr) Tonge (former wife of George Maurice Tonge), daughter of Gerald Harrison Barr, in 1957. They divorced in 1958 and he married Lady Caroline (née Child-Villiers) Elliot-Murray-Kynynmound, former wife of Gilbert Elliot-Murray-Kynynmound, Viscount Melgund, and eldest daughter of the 9th Earl of Jersey, in 1969. They divorced in 1980.
* Hon. Jean Davina Stuart (b. 1932), who married John Reedham Erskine Berney, son of Maj. Sir Thomas Berney, 10th Baronet, in 1951. After his death in 1952, she married Percy William Jesson, son of Lt.-Col. Harold Jesson, in 1954. After his death, she married Michael Denison Ritchie in 1985.
Stuart died at Salisbury Infirmary on 20 February 1971, aged 74, and was succeeded in the viscountcy by his elder son. His widow died in October 1977.
Before his marriage, Stuart had been noted as a suitor of Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon while serving as an equerry to her eventual husband Prince Albert, Duke of York (the future King George VI).

## Arms

Coat of arms of James Stuart, 1st Viscount Stuart of Findhorn :
* CrestIn a nest Vert a pelican feeding her young Or about her neck a collar engrailed Gules.
* EscutcheonQuarterly 1st Or a lion rampant within a double tressure flory counterflory Gules all within a bordure compony Azure and Argent (Stuart) 2nd Or a fess chequy Azure and Argent (Stewart of Downe) 3rd Or three cushions within a double tressure flory counterflory Gules (Randolph) 4th Gules a lion rampant within a bordure engrailed Argent (Gray) all within a bordure Or for difference.
* SupportersTwo capercailzie Proper their wings closed.
* MottoSaius Per Christum Redemptorem