Bernard Weatherill Bruce Bernard Weatherill , Baron Weatherill , PC , DL , KStJ ( 25 November 1920 – 6 May 2007 ) was a British Conservative Party politician who became Speaker of the House of Commons . Tailor . After attending Malvern College , he was apprenticed at age 17 as a tailor to the family firm Bernard Weatherill Ltd , Sporting Tailors , later of Savile Row . He later became Director ( 1948 ) , then Managing Director ( 1958 ) , then Chairman ( 1967 ) of the business . After it merged with Kilgour French & Stanbury Ltd . , Tailors in 1969 , he became Chairman of the combined firms . He resumed his role with the company after his retirement from the House of Commons in 1992 , serving as President until the firm was acquired by others in 2003 . Some of the clothes he designed are preserved in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum and other museum collections . Following his mother ' s advice , he always carried his tailoring thimble in his pocket as a reminder of his trade origins and the need for humility , no matter how high one rises . He said that he desired his epitaph to be " He always kept his word . " British Army . Enlisting as a private in the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry Regiment of the British Army , a few days after the start of World War II , Weatherill was commissioned into the 4th / 7th Dragoon Guards in May 1941 and reached the rank of Captain three years after that . He was attached to 19th King George V ' s Own Lancers , Indian Army , after being posted to Burma . After seeing the Bengal Famine of 1943 , he became a vegetarian . A year after the end of the war , he was discharged , having served for seven years . Member of Parliament . He was elected a Member of Parliament on 15 October 1964 for Croydon North East as a Conservative . He became a party whip only three years later , and deputy Chief Whip six years after that . He was re - elected seven times to the same parliamentary seat until his retirement in 1992 . From October 1971 to April 1973 , Weatherill was Vice - Chamberlain of Her Majesty ' s Household . This office is usually held by a Government whip , as Weatherill then was . As Vice - Chamberlain , he wrote a letter ( hand - carried by messenger , or sent by telegram ) directly to the Queen at the end of each day the House of Commons met , describing the debates , reactions , and political gossip of the day . His letters are believed to have been more entertaining to the Queen than the debates themselves . It has recently been revealed that in 1979 , Weatherill played a critical role in the defeat of the Labour government in the vote of confidence . As the vote loomed , Labour ' s deputy Chief Whip , Walter Harrison approached Weatherill to enforce the convention and " gentleman ' s agreement " that if a sick MP from the Government could not vote , an MP from the Opposition would abstain to compensate . The Labour MP Alfred Broughton was on his deathbed and could not vote , meaning the Government would probably lose by one vote . Weatherill said that the convention had never been intended for such a critical vote that literally meant the life or death of the Government and it would be impossible to find a Conservative MP who would agree to abstain . However , after a moment ' s reflection , he offered that he himself would abstain , because he felt it would be dishonourable to break his word with Harrison . Walter Harrison was so impressed by Weatherill ' s offer - which would have effectively ended his political career - that he released Weatherill from his obligation and so the Government fell by one vote on the agreement of gentlemen . Elected as Speaker . He served as the Speaker of the House of Commons from 1983 to 1992 . As Speaker at the time television cameras were first allowed to cover proceedings in the House of Commons , he became widely known throughout the English - speaking world due to the regular international rebroadcasts of Prime minister ' s questions . He was the last speaker to wear a wig while in the chair . He commented that the wig is a wonderful device that allows the speaker to pretend not to hear some things . He enforced the rights of Parliament to be publicly told of government policies before they were announced to the press or elsewhere . A portrait by Robin - Lee Hall of Speaker Weatherill hangs in Portcullis House . Life peer . He stood down in 1992 , and was made a life peer that same year , as Baron Weatherill , of North East Croydon in the London Borough of Croydon . As is customary for former speakers , the government put before the House of Commons an address to the Queen , asking that Weatherill be appointed a peer as a mark of " royal favour " . Given a rare opportunity to discuss constitutional arrangements relating to the monarch and the Upper House , left - wing members of Parliament forced a debate on the petition . It was reported in several newspapers that Weatherill would be granted an earldom , The Earl of Wetheral . This did not come to fruition . He sat in the House of Lords as a crossbencher . This is the convention for former Speakers of the House of Commons , irrespective of their previous party affiliation . In 1993 , he was elected alternate Convenor of the Crossbench Peers , and was a convenor from 1995 until 1999 . In the House of Lords he made a major contribution to the House of Lords Act 1999 by stitching together the compromise that allowed a limited number of hereditary peers to remain as members . In 2006 , he became Patron of the Better Off Out campaign , calling for Britain to leave the European Union . Personal life . He was the son of Bernard Bruce Weatherill ( 1883 – 1962 ) and Annie Gertrude Weatherill ( née Creak , 1886 – 1966 ) . He married Lyn Eatwell ( 1928 – ) in 1949 and they had three children : sons Bernard R . , QC ( born 1951 ) and H . Bruce ( born 1953 ) and daughter Virginia ( born 1955 ) . Weatherill was known as " Jack " , while his twin sister ( baptismal name Margery ) was called " Jill " . He became a Freeman of the City of London in 1949 , and of the Borough of Croydon in 1983 . He was a member of three City of London Livery Companies : the Worshipful Company of Merchant Taylors , the Worshipful Company of Blacksmiths , and the Worshipful Company of Gold and Silver Wyre Drawers . He was made a member of the Privy Council in 1980 . In 1989 , he succeeded the Lord Blake as High Bailiff and Searcher of the Sanctuary of Westminster Abbey . He resigned both of those offices at the end of 1998 in protest of the manner in which the Dean and Chapter dealt with terminating the employment of the organist . He was succeeded by Sir Roy Strong . He was Vice - Chancellor of the British charitable Order of St John of Jerusalem from 1983 through 2000 , and was a knight thereof from 1992 . An Urdu - speaker , he was decorated with the Hilal - i - Pakistan ( Crescent of Pakistan , second class ) by the government of Pakistan in 1993 . In 1994 , he was named a Deputy Lieutenant of Kent . Lord Weatherill was a member of the European Reform Forum . Weatherill was an advocate for vegetarianism and appeared at the first Vegetarian Rally in Hyde Park in 1990 , alongside Tony Benn . He once stated , " as a life long vegetarian I believe that since man cannot give life he has no moral right to take it away " . In 2005 , he announced he was suffering from prostate cancer . On 6 May 2007 , he died at the age of 86 in the Marie Curie Community Hospice in Caterham , Surrey after a short illness . The Bernard Weatherill House council office in Croydon is named after him . External links .