Peter Carington, 6th Baron Carrington

Infobox_Officeholder
honorific-prefix = The Right Honourable
name=The Lord Carrington
honorific-suffix =
KG, GCMG, CH, MC, PC, DL


imagesize = 225px
caption = Lord Carrington, as Chancellor of the Order of the Garter, in procession to St George's Chapel at Windsor Castle
order=First Lord of the Admiralty
term_start =14 October 1959
term_end =20 October 1963
prime_minister=Harold Macmillan
predecessor =The Earl of Selkirk
successor =The Earl Jellicoe
birth_date =birth date and age|df=yes|1919|06|06
birth_place =Buckinghamshire, England
nationality = British
party=Conservative
order2=Minister without Portfolio
term_start2=20 October 1963
term_end2=16 October 1964
primeminister2=Sir Alec Douglas-Home
predecessor2=W.F. Deedes
successor2=Vacant
Position was next held by George Morgan Thomson in 1968
order3=Leader of the House of Lords
term_start3=20 October 1963
term_end3=16 October 1964
primeminister3=Sir Alec Douglas-Home
predecessor3=The Viscount Hailsham
successor3=The Earl of Longford
order4=Secretary of State for Defence
term_start4=20 June 1970
term_end4=8 January 1974
primeminister4=Edward Heath
predecessor4=Denis Healey
successor4=Sir Ian Gilmour, Bt.
order5=Secretary of State for Energy
term_start5=8 January
term_end5=4 March 1974
primeminister5=Edward Heath
predecessor5=Position created
successor5=Eric Varley
order6=Foreign Secretary
term_start6 =4 May 1979
term_end6 =5 April 1982
primeminister6 =Margaret Thatcher
predecessor6 =David Owen
successor6 =Francis Pym
order7=Secretary-General of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO)
term_start7=25 June 1984
term_end7=1 July 1988
predecessor7=Joseph Luns
successor7=Manfred Wörner
school=Eton
alma_mater =Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst
spouse=Iona Maclean

Peter Alexander Rupert Carington , 6th Baron Carrington and Baron Carington of Upton KG, GCMG, CH, MC, PC, DL (born 6 June 1919) is a British Conservative politician and served as British Foreign Secretary between 1979 and 1982 and as Secretary-General of NATO from 1984 to 1988.

Career

Carrington was educated at Eton, where his fag (a junior boy who acts or acted as servant) was the late Humphrey Lyttelton, and RMA Sandhurst. In 1938 he succeeded his father as 6th Baron Carrington and took his seat in the House of Lords on his 21st birthday in 1940. During the Second World War he served as a major in the Grenadier Guards and was awarded the Military Cross.

After the war Lord Carrington became involved in politics and served in the Conservative administrations of Winston Churchill and Anthony Eden as Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry for Agriculture and Food from November 1951 to October 1954 and to the Ministry of Defence from October 1954 to October 1956. The latter year Carrington was appointed High Commissioner to Australia, a post he held until October 1959.

After his return to Britain he served under Harold Macmillan as First Lord of the Admiralty until October 1963 and was then Minister without Portfolio and Leader of the House of Lords under Sir Alec Douglas-Home until October 1964, when the Conservatives fell from power. From 1964 to 1970 he was Leader of the Opposition in the House of Lords. When the Conservatives returned to power in 1970 under Edward Heath, Carrington became Defence Secretary, where he remained until 1974. He also served as Chairman of the Conservative Party from 1972 to 1974, and was briefly Secretary of State for Energy from January to March 1974.

Lord Carrington was again Leader of the Opposition in the House of Lords from 1974 to 1979. In 1979 he was made Foreign Secretary and Minister for Overseas Development as part of the first Cabinet of Margaret Thatcher. He chaired the Lancaster House conference in 1979, a wrapup of Zimbabwe's revolutionary war attended by Ian Smith, Abel Muzorewa, Robert Mugabe, Joshua Nkomo, Josiah Tongogara that paved the way for second elections in February, 1980. He was Foreign Secretary in 1982 when the Falkland Islands were invaded by Argentina. He took full responsibility for the complacency and failures in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to foresee this development and resigned. Lord Carrington then served as Secretary-General of NATO from 1984 to 1988.

In 1991, Lord Carrington presided over diplomatic talks about the breakup of the Former Yugoslavia and attempted to pass a plan that would end the wars and result in each republic becoming an independent nation.

Apart from his political posts he is an emeritus Chancellor of the University of Reading and has served as chairman of several companies, including Christie's, and as a director of many others, including Barclays Bank, Schweppes and the Daily Telegraph. He also chaired the Bilderberg conferences for several years in the late 90s, being succeeded in 1999 by Étienne Davignon. [cite book
last=Rockefeller
first=David
authorlink=David Rockefeller
title=Memoirs
publisher=Random House
date=2002
pages=p.412
id=ISBN 0-679-40588-7] In 1983 he became president of the Pilgrims Society.cite book
title=Who's Who|date=1999]

After the House of Lords Act 1999 removed the automatic right of hereditary peers to sit in the House of Lords, Carrington (along with all former Leaders of the House of Lords) was given a life peerage as Baron Carington of Upton, of Upton in the County of Nottinghamshire, and therefore still sits in the House of Lords. He is currently the longest serving member of the House of Lords and is the second longest serving member of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom after the Duke of Edinburgh.

His surname (which the family assumed in 1839 in lieu of Smith) and life peerage are both spelt Carington (single "r"), and the hereditary peerages are spelt Baron Carrington (double "r").Fact|date=July 2008

Honours

*Military Cross, 1945.
*Lord of Her Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council, 1959.
*Member of the Order of the Companions of Honour, 1983.
*Knight Companion of the Most Noble Order of the Garter, 1985.
*Knight Grand Cross of the Most Distinguished Order of Saint Michael and Saint George, 1988.
*Life peerage, as Baron Carington of Upton, 1999.
*Medal of Honour for his contribution regarding Serbian war crimes committed against civilians in Croatia (especially in the Vukovar massacre and rough displacement of citizens), 1999.

tyles

* The Hon. Peter Carington (1919-1938)
* The Rt. Hon. The Lord Carrington (1938-1945)
* The Rt. Hon. The Lord Carrington MC (1945-1959)
* The Rt. Hon. The Lord Carrington MC PC (1959-1983)
* The Rt. Hon. The Lord Carrington CH MC PC (1983-1985)
* The Rt. Hon. The Lord Carrington KG CH MC PC (1985-1988)
* The Rt. Hon. The Lord Carrington KG GCMG CH MC PC (1988-1999)
* The Rt. Hon. The Lord Carrington, Lord Carington of Upton KG GCMG CH MC PC (1999-)

Lord Carrington is also a Deputy-Lieutenant, entitling his to use the post-nominal of "DL". However, there is no evidence detailing when he was appointed such and thus it has not been included on this list.

Family

Lord Carrington married Iona McClean, daughter of Lt.-Colonel Sir Francis Kennedy McClean, on 25 April 1942. They have three children:

* The Hon. Alexandra Carington DL (Norfolk) (1943-); married Major Peter de Bunsen in 1965, becoming The Hon. Mrs Alexandra de Bunsen. They have three children::* Victoria de Bunsen (1968-):* Charles Rupert de Bunsen (1970-):* James Peter de Bunsen (1973-)
* The Hon. Virginia Carington (1946-); married Henry Cubitt, 4th Baron Ashcombe in 1973, becoming Lady Ashcombe. The couple divorced in 1979
* The Hon. Rupert Francis John Carington DL (Buckinghamshire) (1948-) - heir apparent; married Daniela Diotallevi in 1989. She became The Hon. Mrs Rupert Carington, or Mrs Daniela Carington. They have three children::* Robert Carington (1990-):* Francesca Carington (1993-):* Isabella Iona Carington (1995-)

In popular culture

Carington was portrayed by James Fox in the 2002 BBC production of Ian Curteis's controversial "The Falklands Play".

Notes

Further reading: 'Reflect on Things Past - The Memoirs of Lord Carrington'. Published by William Collins, 1988.

External links

* [http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld199900/minutes/991117/ldminute.htm Announcement of his taking the oath under his new title at the House of Lords] House of Lords minutes of proceedings, 17 November 1999
* [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/03/26/weu126.xml Lord Carrington's views on the EU from the Daily Telegraph]
* [http://www.burkes-peerage.net/sites/Contents/book/UK/FHP/Peerage/fhp-CARRINGTON.asp?&string1=carrington Burke's Peerage entry] .
* [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/uk_politics/04/thatchers_government/html/carrington.stm Thatcher's First Cabinet]

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