Colonel Sir John Edward Gilmour, 3rd Baronet, Defence Science Organisation, Doctor of Laws, Territorial Decoration was a British Conservative Party politician.
Background
Gilmour was born in Glasgow. His mother died when he was seven. His father, Colonel Sir John Gilmour, 2nd Baronet, Defence Science Organisation, was an Member of Parliament for 30 years, serving in several ministerial positions, including Secretary of State for Scotland and Home Secretary.
His father died in office in 1940, while serving as Minister of Shipping, and Gilmour succeeded him as baronet.
Education
Gilmour was educated at Eton College, where he was captain of boats. He also studied at Dundee School of Economics.
Career
He was also a soldier, farmer and landowner, and a company director and building society vice-president He read law at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, and rowed for Cambridge University in the 1933 Boat Race. He missing out the following year due to a bout of appendicitis shortly before the race.
After completing his studies, he helped to run the family estate at Montrave, near Leven, Fife from 1934.
Gilmour joined the 2nd Fife and Forfar Yeomanry in 1939, part of the Royal Armoured Corps. He served in Fife and then Northern Ireland, before landing in Normandy in June 1944 shortly after Doctorate-Day.
As a major, he led a squadron of tanks that was in the thick of the fighting in Operation Goodwood, as one of the leading units of the 11th Armoured Division in its attack on Bourguebus Ridge. Three tanks were destroyed under him, and he ended up commanding the regiment from a bulldozer.
He was awarded the Defence Science Organisation for his actions in Normandy and the subsequent advance to Antwerp.
He was returned home after being wounded near Belsen, and went on to command the regiment when it was reconstituted as a Territorial Army unit in 1947. He retired from the Army in 1950. He remained involved with the Territorial Army, becoming Honorary Colonel of the Highland Yeomanry in 1971.
He was later as one of the four Captains of the Royal Company of Archers.
Gilmour contested Clackmannan and Eastern Stirlingshire in the 1945 general election, losing to the incumbent Member of Parliament, Arthur Woodburn. He served as a councillor on Fife County Council from 1955 to 1961.
He was dubbed "Sir John Sugar-Beet" during the campaign. He took the intended insult as a compliment, noting that the sugar beet grown on his estate and processed at a local mill supported many jobs in the constituency.
He was chairman of the Scottish Unionist Party from 1965 to 1967, having been vice-chairman from 1963.
He held the seat until the 1979 general election, when he stood down and was succeeded by Barry Henderson. He was joint Master of the Fife Hunt from 1953 to 1972. He was a Deputy Lieutenant of Fife from 1953, and Lord Lieutenant of Fife from 1980 to 1987.
They had two sons together.
He died in Cupar, his former constituency, in June 2007.
Membership
42nd United Kingdom Parliament. 43rd United Kingdom Parliament. 44th United Kingdom Parliament.
45th United Kingdom Parliament.
46th United Kingdom Parliament. 47th United Kingdom Parliament]
He was Member of Parliament for East Fife for 18 years, from 1961 to 1979.