Background
Younger"s great-great-great-great-great-grandfather, George Younger (baptised 1722), was the founder of George Younger and Son of Alloa, the family"s brewing business (not to be confused with Younger"s of Edinburgh).
Younger"s great-great-great-great-great-grandfather, George Younger (baptised 1722), was the founder of George Younger and Son of Alloa, the family"s brewing business (not to be confused with Younger"s of Edinburgh).
He was educated at Cargilfield Preparatory School, Winchester College, and New College, Oxford, where he obtained a Master"s degree.
Younger"s great-grandfather, George Younger, was created Viscount Younger of Leckie in 1923. Younger was the eldest of the three sons of Edward Younger, 3rd Viscount Younger of Leckie. Joining the British Army, he served in the Korean War with the Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders.
He first stood for Parliament, unsuccessfully, in North Lanarkshire in the 1959 General Election.
Subsequently, he was initially selected to stand for the Kinross and West Perthshire seat in a by-election in late 1963, but agreed to stand aside to allow the new Prime Minister Alec Douglas-Home the chance to enter the House of Commons. He succeeded Michael Heseltine as Secretary of State for Defence in 1986 when Heseltine resigned from the cabinet over a dispute about helicopters known as the Westland crisis.
Younger quit the cabinet in 1989, and joined the Royal Bank of Scotland, becoming its chairman in 1992. He was created a life peer as Baron Younger of Prestwick of Ayr in the District of Kyle and Carrick on 7 July 1992, five years before succeeding to the viscountcy.
As such, he continued to sit in the House of Lords after the passage of the House of Lords Acting 1999 which expelled most of the hereditary peers.
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46th United Kingdom Parliament.
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Following in the footsteps of his great-grandfather the 1st Viscount, Younger became Member of Parliament for Ayr in 1964.
