 Birth Notes:
http://odnb2.ifactory.com/view/printable/97517
And
http://search.ancestry.co.uk/cgi-bin/sse.dll?rank=1&new=1&MSAV=1&msT=1&gss=angs-g&gsfn=John+Wynne+William&gsfn_x=NIC&gsln=Peyton&gsln_x=XO&cpxt=1&catBucket=rstp&uidh=iof&cp=11&pcat=ROOT_CATEGORY&h=1021913021&db=ONSDeath93&indiv=1&ml_rpos=3
13/2/1919
And
http://search.ancestry.co.uk/cgi-bin/sse.dll?db=ONSBirth84&h=43507730&indiv=try&o_vc=Record:OtherRecord&rhSource=7579
Death Notes:
http://odnb2.ifactory.com/view/printable/97517
And
http://search.ancestry.co.uk/cgi-bin/sse.dll?rank=1&new=1&MSAV=1&msT=1&gss=angs-g&gsfn=John+Wynne+William&gsfn_x=NIC&gsln=Peyton&gsln_x=XO&cpxt=1&catBucket=rstp&uidh=iof&cp=11&pcat=ROOT_CATEGORY&h=1021913021&db=ONSDeath93&indiv=1&ml_rpos=3
Burial Notes:
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=36416984&ref=acom
Sources of information or noted events in his life were:
• Web Based Info. http://www.thepeerage.com/p62162.html#i621611
• Obituary. Lord Peyton of Yeovil, who has died aged 87, was a former Conservative minister of transport industries (1970-74) under Edward Heath, and MP for Yeovil from 1959 to 1983. He was a man who relished controversy rather than consensus, and thus he might have settled for the role of backbench gadfly, but instead he aspired to high ministerial office. He unsuccessfully stood against Margaret Thatcher for the Tory leadership in 1975 and his failure to be included in her cabinet from 1979 was a great disappointment to him. This he did not hide, but he bore it with a commendable lack of rancour. Peyton was educated at Eton and Trinity College, Oxford. At that point, he showed only a modest interest in politics, confessing: "I became overfond of racing." He joined the supplementary reserve of the 15/19 Hussars, and, with the onset of the second world war, was despatched to France. He was taken prisoner in Belgium in 1940, an experience he graphically described in his autobiography Without Benefit of Laundry (1997). His younger brother was killed in action at St Nazaire in 1942.
As a prisoner, he studied law, and, after the war made tentative steps in pursuing a legal career, but the attractions of politics proved stronger. In the 1950 general election, he unsuccessfully fought the Labour stronghold of Bristol Central, but in 1951 won Yeovil. His first decade at Westminster was spent on the backbenches. He was a natural "below the gangway" politician, with an eye for the political jugular and an acerbic wit. From there, he became the parliamentary private secretary to Nigel Birch, a junior defence minister, a match in style. He joined the government in 1962 as parliamentary secretary to the minister of power but this spell in office was terminated by Labour's general election victory in 1964.
He next took office in 1970 with the general election victory of Heath. He was initially appointed minister of transport, but after six months the post was renamed ministry of transport industries. It was a change in name rather than in function, and it was the kind of gobbledygook that irritated Peyton. He was confronted by a railway system that was dilapidated and under-capitalised, a road network that was outstripped by vehicle growth, and ports that were bedevilled by restrictive practices. He yearned for the transport reforms that were eventually carried out by Conservative ministers after 1979.
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In minor matters, however, Peyton was able to indicate his implicit radicalism. In 1971, Thomas Cook, British Rail's travel agency, was denationalised. He insisted that a white paper on port finances be reduced from an initial 100 pages to less than five - a modest matter but within Whitehall a triumph. Peyton's greatest claim to ministerial fame was his dispassionate view of nationalised industry executives and his determination to leave them relatively free from political supervision.
After the Conservatives' election defeat in February 1974, Heath offered him the novel post of shadow leader of the house. Peyton enthusiastically played the aggressive role that Heath had assigned to him. Nevertheless, he had only a modest time to develop his skills before prime minister Harold Wilson increased his majority in October 1974, and the Conservatives subsequently arranged a leadership election. Peyton stood at the second ballot when Thatcher, who had already despatched Heath on the first vote, defeated all candidates. There was puzzlement as to why Peyton should have stood. Unlike fellow contestants, Geoffrey Howe and James Prior, he had no cabinet experience; and unlike William Whitelaw, another contestant, he had no traditional constituency within the parliamentary party. The gesture, although heroic, did not promote Peyton's reputation. He obtained 11 votes and was bottom of the poll. His behaviour was seen as the tactics of a maverick.
Thatcher offered him the post of agriculture in her shadow cabinet. He loyally carried out this task; but the man and the post were not an ideal partnership. Peyton was too honest to accommodate the special pleading that dominates agricultural politics. On the other hand, his determination to end the distortions of the "green" pound were generally approved by farmers.
The Conservative election in 1979 was an acutely unhappy episode for Peyton. All other members of the shadow cabinet were confirmed in office; he alone was excluded. He made public his disappointment, but he was as good as his word in disavowing any plans to be an embittered backbench critic. He was sent to the Lords in 1983, from where he frequently questioned the wisdom of the Commons.
Peyton also managed to pursue other activities. He was chairman of the British subsidiary of the American company Texas Instruments (1974-90) and of British Alcan Aluminium (1987-91).
As treasurer of the Zoological Society of London (1984-91), which is responsible for London Zoo and Whipsnade wild animal park, there was much public interest, and rancour, over measures needed to repair the society's finances. Peyton was much concerned that these should be put on a sound footing and that this would require government financial assistance. Eventually, Peyton, and others, resigned when efforts failed to bring about fiscal realism.
Peyton was an essentially private person. Few realised the extent of his grief at the loss of his brother, and later, the childhood death of one of his sons. He may not have succeeded in the quest for political office, but there can be no doubt about the impact of his craggy individualism, a quality he brought to Westminster. Interestingly, he opposed capital punishment.
He is survived by his second wife, Mary, whom he married in 1966, and by the son and daughter of his first marriage.
· John Wynne William Peyton (Lord Peyton of Yeovil), politician, born February 13 1919; died November 22 2006
http://www.theguardian.com/news/2006/nov/27/guardianobituaries.obituaries
And
Peyton, John Wynne William, Baron Peyton of Yeovil (1919'962006), politician, was born on 13 February 1919 at 6 Berkeley Street, Mayfair, London, the elder son of Ivor Eliot Peyton, of independent means, a farmer and captain in the South Nottinghamshire hussars, and his wife, Helen Dorothy, née Elphinstone. He was educated at Eton College, and went to Trinity College, Oxford, in 1937 to read jurisprudence. At Oxford he met Edward Heath, and had a minor interest in university politics and the union. From 1936 onwards he was convinced that war was inevitable, and in 1939 he suspended his studies to enlist in the 15th/19th hussars, in which regiment an uncle had once been a general. Stationed in York, he met and fell in love with Mary Constance (b. 1921), daughter of (Everard) Humphrey Wyndham, an army officer then serving as aide-de-camp to George VI, and granddaughter of the second Baron Leconfield of Leconfield (and niece of the third, fourth, and fifth barons).
A member of the British expeditionary force, Peyton was captured during the invasion of Belgium in 1940, and spent the next five years as a prisoner of war. This was undoubtedly a formative period in his life, and several of his fellow prisoners became lifelong friends. He discovered an interest in music (he later became a friend of William Walton), and under the tutelage of Jack Hamson (before the war a Cambridge academic lawyer) studied for his bar exams. In 1941 he was part of an unsuccessful escape attempt that included Desmond Llewelyn among its participants. Peyton spent several months handcuffed during daylight hours in 1942, and was devastated by news of his brother Tommy's death that year. He wrote later of the 'bottomless misery of war' (Peyton, 42).
Liberated in 1945, Peyton at first found it difficult to adjust to freedom; to compound matters, on return to London he discovered that Mary Wyndham was about to marry Ralph Hamilton Cobbold. Called to the bar in 1945, in 1946 he approached Walter Monckton to secure a place in chambers, and was invited to become his personal assistant as constitutional adviser to the nizam of Hyderabad and Berar (then believed to be the richest man in the world) during the preparation for Indian independence. He spent two periods in India, allowing him to observe at first hand events surrounding independence. He returned to the country in the 1980s and 1990s. In 1947 he survived a serious plane crash near Basrah. In December 1947, in Johannesburg, South Africa, he married Diana Clunch, whom he had met a few months before. She was the daughter of Douglas Clunch of Durban. By this time Peyton had become a Lloyds broker, but quickly decided to enter politics. He stood unsuccessfully as Conservative candidate for Bristol Central in the general election of 1950, then won the seat of Yeovil in October 1951. In 1950 he and his wife had moved to Odcombe near Yeovil; they had three children, a daughter and two sons.
In parliament Peyton soon became reacquainted with Edward Heath (then deputy chief whip). In 1951 he became parliamentary private secretary to Nigel Birch (also educated at Eton), a junior minister at the Ministry of Defence. His membership of the regional health board both shaped his view of the limitations of state bureaucracy and allowed him to campaign successfully for a new hospital in Yeovil. During the 1950s he became an opponent of capital punishment, a stance that did not always find favour with his constituents. He was nevertheless a strong advocate of free market economics, and was a member of the right-wing Monday Club by the early 1970s.
In 1960 Peyton's younger son died during a routine operation; this led to a period of great unhappiness in his life. In 1962 he renewed his acquaintance with Mary Cobbold (née Wyndham). He and she were both divorced in 1966, and married on 27 July that year; it was a happy marriage that lasted the rest of his life. He became a stepfather to her son and daughter by her marriage to Ralph Cobbold.
In June 1962 Harold Macmillan asked Peyton to become parliamentary secretary at the Ministry of Power. Peyton saw poor industrial relations and management of nationalized industries as the two key issues, and embarked on a programme of visiting coalmines. He found the paperwork associated with ministerial life frustrating. He was not invited to join Heath's shadow team in 1965, but was asked to develop a policy for the west country before the general election of 1970. This identified developing transport links as being the priority for the region; following Heath's victory Peyton was surprised to be invited to become minister of transport. Industrial relations and poor infrastructure were again key themes, and he began developing good links with trade union leaders, including Jack Jones. His two most important decisions during this period were the introduction of compulsory helmets for motorcyclists and the signing of the treaty agreeing the channel tunnel in 1974. He viewed the latter as an important physical symbol of Britain's commitment to Europe; it also enabled him to strengthen his friendship with Christopher Soames, then British ambassador in Paris. In 1971 Peyton was responsible for the sale of British Rail's travel agency, Thomas Cook.
After the Conservative defeat in the general election of February 1974 Peyton began to develop his business interests, becoming chairman of the British subsidiary of Texas Instruments. He was also a director of Alcan Aluminium and of the London and Manchester Assurance Society. In November 1974 Heath invited him to become shadow leader of the House of Commons. Following Heath's defeat in the first round of the leadership election of 1975 (after which Peyton advised him to resign), Peyton stood in the second ballot, a move he later regretted. He received eleven votes. The victor, Margaret Thatcher, subsequently asked him to continue as shadow leader of the house, moving him sideways to become shadow minister of agriculture in 1976, a post he never really enjoyed. Peyton had admired Heath; his relations with Thatcher were less strong. In 1979 he was disappointed at being the only opposition spokesman not to be offered a cabinet post. His relationship with Thatcher never recovered; she offered him a life peerage at the next election, and he requested she confirm this in writing. He expressed misgivings at her divisive policies and treatment of the miners, but admired the way in which the Falklands conflict was handled in 1982.
In 1983 Peyton was appointed to the House of Lords, as Baron Peyton of Yeovil; his sponsors were the former prime minister Alec Douglas-Home, Lord Home of the Hirsel, and Lord Zuckerman, a longtime government scientific adviser. Zuckerman persuaded Peyton to become involved with the Zoological Society of London, and he quickly became treasurer, securing much funding during the 1980s. A well-received autobiography was published in 1997, and a biography of Zuckerman in 2001. In retirement he remained a highly regarded figure in his former constituency and could often be seen walking near his home in Hinton St George, wearing a distinctive black beret. He was a master of mischievous retort, a skill that made his writing attractive but did not always endear him to contemporaries; John Biffen once remarked, 'I wonder what quip John will make when he meets God' (The Independent, 25 Nov 2006). He died at St George's Hospital, Tooting, London, on 22 November 2006, of multi-organ failure. He was survived by his second wife, his daughter, one son, and his stepchildren. A bequest was used for a memorial screen in Hinton St George church.
http://odnb2.ifactory.com/view/printable/97517
• General Comment. John Wynne William Peyton, Baron Peyton of Yeovil was born on 13 February 1919. He was the son of Ivor Eliot Peyton and Dorothy Helen Elphinstone. He married, firstly, Diana Clinch, daughter of Douglas Clinch, in December 1947. He and Diana Clinch were divorced in 1966. He married, secondly, Mary Constance Wyndham, daughter of Brig.-Gen. Hon. Everard Humphrey Wyndham and Ruth Constance Astley, on 27 July 1966. He died on 22 November 2006 at age 87.
He was educated at Eton College, Windsor, Berkshire, England. He was educated at Trinity College, Oxford University, Oxford, Oxfordshire, England. He fought in the Second World War. He gained the rank of Second Lieutenant in 1939 in the service of the 15th/19th Hussars. Between 1940 and 1945 he was held as a Prisoner of War (P.O.W.). He was admitted to Inner Temple in 1945 entitled to practice as a barrister. He held the office of Member of Parliament (M.P.) (Conservative) for Yeovil between 1951 and 1983.3 He was Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Power between 1962 and 1964. He was Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport in 1970. He was invested as a Privy Councillor (P.C.) in 1970. He was Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport Industries Department of the Environment between 1970 and 1974. He was chairman of Texas Instruments between 1974 and 1990. He was created Baron Peyton of Yeovil, of Yeovil in the County of Somerset [U.K. Life Peer] on 5 October 1983. He was treasurer of the Zoological Society of London between 1984 and 1991. He was chairman of British Aluminium between 1987 and 1991. He wrote the book Without Benefit of Laundry, (autobiography). He lived at The Old Malt House, Hinton St George, Somerset, England. He lived at 6 Temple West Mews, West Square, London, England.
http://www.thepeerage.com/p19170.html#i191696
And
http://trees.ancestry.co.uk/tree/65273162/person/34251633500/media/1?pgnum=1&pg=0&pgpl=pid%7cpgNum
• General Comment. Copy of his mother in law, Vera Eileen Jopp's, Death Notice dated 2 May 1969 in RAB's possession.
John married Diana Clinch, daughter of Hugh Douglas Clinch and Vera Eileen Platt, in Dec 1947. The marriage ended in divorce in 1966. (Diana Clinch was born about 1925.)
Sources of information or noted events in their marriage were:
• Web Based Info. http://www.thepeerage.com/p21200.html#i211995
And
http://www.thepeerage.com/p19170.html#i191696
John next married Mary Constance Wyndham, daughter of Brig.-Gen. Hon. Everard Humphrey Wyndham and Ruth Constance Astley, Sep Q 1966 in Kensington, Middlesex, England. (Mary Constance Wyndham was born on 12 Feb 1921 in St. George Hanover Square, London, England.)
Sources of information or noted events in their marriage were:
• Web Based Info. http://www.theguardian.com/news/2006/nov/27/guardianobituaries.obituaries
And
http://search.ancestry.co.uk/cgi-bin/sse.dll?db=ONSmarriage1984&h=43068593&indiv=try&o_vc=Record:OtherRecord&rhSource=7579
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