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Norman St John-Stevas

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English politician (1929–2012)

The Right HonourableThe Lord St John of FawsleyPC FRSL
St John-Stevas in 1968
Minister of State for the Arts
In office
5 May 1979 – 5 January 1981
Prime MinisterMargaret Thatcher
Preceded byThe Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge
Succeeded byPaul Channon
In office
2 December 1973 – 4 March 1974
Prime MinisterEdward Heath
Preceded byThe Viscount Eccles
Succeeded byHugh Jenkins
Leader of the House of Commons
In office
5 May 1979 – 5 January 1981
Prime MinisterMargaret Thatcher
Preceded byMichael Foot
Succeeded byFrancis Pym
Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
In office
5 May 1979 – 5 January 1981
Prime MinisterMargaret Thatcher
Preceded byHarold Lever
Succeeded byFrancis Pym
Shadow Leader of the House of Commons
In office
6 November 1978 – 4 May 1979
LeaderMargaret Thatcher
Preceded byFrancis Pym
Succeeded byMichael Foot
Shadow Secretary of State for Education and Science
In office
28 February 1974 – 6 November 1978
LeaderEdward Heath
Margaret Thatcher
Preceded byWilliam van Straubenzee
Succeeded byMark Carlisle
Member of the House of Lords
Lord Temporal
In office
19 October 1987 – 2 March 2012
Life peerage
Member of Parliament
for Chelmsford
In office
15 October 1964 – 18 May 1987
Preceded byHubert Ashton
Succeeded bySimon Burns
Personal details
BornNorman Panayea St John Stevas
(1929-05-18)18 May 1929
London, England
Died2 March 2012(2012-03-02) (aged 82)
London, England
Political partyConservative
Domestic partnerAdrian Stanford (1956–2012) Civil Partnership 2008
Alma mater

Norman Antony Francis St John-Stevas, Baron St John of Fawsley, PC, FRSL (/ˌsɪndʒən ˈstiːvəs/ sin-jən-STEE-vəs; born Norman Panayea St John Stevas; 18 May 1929 – 2 March 2012) was a British Conservative politician, author and barrister. He served as Leader of the House of Commons in the government of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher from 1979 to 1981. He was Member of Parliament (MP) for Chelmsford from 1964 to 1987 and was made a life peer in 1987. His surname was created by compounding those of his father (Stevas) and mother (St John-O'Connor).

Early life

Stevas was born in London. His birth certificate specified that his Christian names were Norman Panayea St John, and that his father was Spyro Stevas, a hotel proprietor of Greek origin. In his Who's Who entry he gave his father as Stephen Stevas, an engineer and company director. His mother was Kitty St John O'Connor. His parents divorced, whereupon his mother hyphenated the name St John. He was reputedly closer to his mother than to his father. His older sister was the actress Juno Alexander, first wife of actor Terence Alexander.

Stevas was educated at St Joseph's Salesian School, Burwash, East Sussex, and then at the Catholic school Ratcliffe College, Leicester. He was active in the Young Conservatives as a speaker for Conservative and Catholic causes. He was a contemporary of Gordon Reece, whom he reported to his superiors for atheism.

Subsequently, he was for six months enrolled at the English College, Rome, a seminary for the Roman Catholic priesthood, but found that he had no vocation. He remained a Catholic throughout his life, however. He then read law at what was then Fitzwilliam Hall, now Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge. As an undergraduate, he lived at St Edmund's House (now St Edmund's College, which at the time was a predominantly Roman Catholic institution) and served as President of the Cambridge Union in 1950. He graduated with first class honours and won the Whitlock Prize.

He studied also at Oxford University, where he gained a Second in the examination for the BCL degree at Christ Church and was the Secretary of the Oxford Union. He then studied for a PhD degree with a thesis titled A study of censorship with special reference to the law governing obscene publications in common law and other jurisdictions (on the early work of Walter Bagehot) from the University of London and a JSD degree from Yale University. He was called to the Bar at the Middle Temple in 1952.

Academic and legal career

St John-Stevas was appointed as a lecturer at Southampton University (1952–1953) and King's College London (1953–1956). He then went to Oxford University to tutor in Jurisprudence at Christ Church (1953–1955) and Merton College (1955–1957). He also lectured in the United States and held a visiting professorship at the University of California, Santa Barbara. From 1954 to 1959 he was legal adviser to Sir Alan Herbert's Committee on book censorship.

Stevas also won many prizes and scholarships: the Blackstone and Harmsworth Scholarship (1952); the Blackstone Prize (1953); the Yorke Prize of Cambridge University (1957); a fellowship at Yale Law School (1958); a Fulbright award; and a Fund for the Republic fellowship (1958).

In 1956 his book Obscenity and the Law was published. This "became a key work of reference during subsequent reforms" and also "reflected an intellectual shift toward the law's retreat from the pulpit". He also wrote Life, Death and the Law (1961), The Right to Life (1963) and The Law and Morals (1964). These were "earnest...with a liberal Catholic lawyer addressing difficult questions in a thoughtful spirit".

In 1959, he joined The Economist and became its Legal and Political Correspondent. Stevas edited the collected works of the Victorian journalist and politician Walter Bagehot. Between 1965 and 1986, The Economist itself published his edition "to great acclaim", what have been called fifteen "beautifully produced and highly regarded volumes". These volumes have been labelled Stevas's "memorial".

Politician

A founding member of the Conservative Bow Group, in 1951 St John-Stevas stood unsuccessfully for the safe Labour seat of Dagenham. He was later elected as Member of Parliament for the safe Conservative seat of Chelmsford in Essex at the 1964 general election holding this seat until stepping down at the 1987 general election. In later elections, the seat became marginal, and his majority at his final election contest in 1983 was less than a thousand votes.

He had opposed Sir Anthony Eden's invasion of Suez in 1956, was a long-standing opponent of capital punishment and immigration restrictions based on race, and favoured a relaxation of the obscenity laws. Owing to his Catholic views, he opposed Leo Abse's Divorce Bill and David Steel's Abortion Bill. In 1966, he was a co-sponsor of Abse's private member's bill to reform the law to permit homosexual acts between consenting adults, which became the Sexual Offences Act 1967.

In the later stages of Prime Minister Edward Heath's government, St John-Stevas was Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department of Education and Science (where Margaret Thatcher was the Secretary of State), and the Minister for the Arts (1973–1974).

After the defeat of Heath's government, St John-Stevas supported Heath in the first ballot of the 1975 Conservative Party leadership election but switched his vote to Thatcher in the second ballot. He then served as a member of the Shadow Cabinet from 1974 to 1979, being the Shadow Spokesman for Education between 1975 and 1978. His deputy was Sir Rhodes Boyson, a working-class Thatcherite from Lancashire. Stevas and Boyson did not get along and loathed each other. Stevas gave Boyson the ironic nickname "Colossus". He became Shadow Leader of the House of Commons in 1978. When the Conservative Party was returned to power at the 1979 general election, he was appointed as Minister for the Arts for a second time from 1979 to 1981, while simultaneously holding the roles of Leader of the House of Commons and Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster.

In his role as Leader of the House, he has been credited with the creation of the House of Commons' system of select committees. These committees enable backbench MPs to hold ministers to account, and exert considerable influence within Parliament. In January 1981, St John-Stevas was the first of the Tory "wets" to be dismissed from the Cabinet by Margaret Thatcher (whom he had previously nicknamed "Tina" for her "there is no alternative" rhetoric). Thatcher explained to Roy Strong, "Norman was too much", and added, "Look at the way he'd done his office up. No sense of economy".

Now on the back-benches, Stevas remained loyal to Thatcher whilst criticising Thatcherite economic policies: "He was a One Nation Conservative who looked to Disraeli rather than Milton Friedman". In 1984 appeared his book The Two Cities, in which he said that Thatcher could see "everything in black and white the universe I inhabit is made up of many shades of grey". He continued his interest in Parliamentary accountability, in 1983, he won the ballot for private members' bills and brought in the bill which became the National Audit Act 1983 establishing the UK's National Audit Office and making it clear that the Comptroller and Auditor General, its head, was an officer of the House of Commons with rights to inspect the value for money of government spending.

St John-Stevas stood down from the House of Commons at the 1987 general election, being created a life peer in the House of Lords with the title Baron St John of Fawsley of Preston Capes in the County of Northamptonshire on 19 October 1987.

Chairman of the Royal Fine Art Commission

He was Chairman of the Royal Fine Art Commission from 1985 to 1999. His tenure was wracked by controversy. It was hoped that his appointment would revitalise and popularise the commission, which had not even produced an annual report for many years. Stevas succeeded in "inject a bit of panache and excitement" into the commission. However it also became a mouthpiece for Lord St John's own views and preferences (most prominently in the annual Building of the Year award). Lord St John adorned his office with paintings from national collections, documents were presented in red boxes and he was served by a chauffeur and ex-civil servants, in accommodation more lavish than that of most secretaries of state: prompting one commentator to quip that "if he cannot have power, he must have the trappings". The necessity of such extravagance was questioned in a government report by Sir Geoffrey Chipperfield.

The Commission strongly criticised the plans for the Millennium Wheel on London's South Bank even though three of the Commissioners were enthusiastic about it. After an ill-tempered meeting in which Stevas was allegedly rude to the Wheel's architects, Sherban Cantacuzino, the commission's secretary, wrote to the architects saying: "I am sure that he enjoys putting people down, all of us have suffered from his bullying".

Despite all predictions, in 1995 Stevas was reappointed for a third term as chairman.

Master of Emmanuel College, Cambridge

His tenure as Master of Emmanuel College at Cambridge University (1991 to 1996) was at times controversial. He built a new lecture theatre with ancillary rooms (the Queen's Building) at the cost of some £8 million, the costs of which were pushed upwards by Lord St John's insistence on re-opening the quarries in Ketton, Rutland, to obtain limestone from the same source from which the college's Wren chapel was built. Some of the college's fellows apparently first had doubts about the wisdom of appointing Stevas when several of his friends were caught naked one night in the Fellows' Garden swimming pool.

Stevas succeeded in promoting the college through House and Garden and Hello!, although some fellows were angered when Mohammed al-Fayed, who had donated £250,000 to a new extension of the college, was rewarded with a "Harrods Room" and an honorary membership of the college, an honour Stevas invented. The relationship between Master and College worsened to the point that "one tutor started handing out copies of the Master's pronouncements in his role as 'constitutional expert' with a prize for the student who spotted the greatest number of legal mistakes".

Stevas's critics alleged that he spent too much time with a small clique of public school-educated young men who "were favoured with introductions to royalty and captains of industry, to dinners at White's, private theatrical performances at the Master's Lodge and long, affectionate letters". Stevas would also cut undergraduates off in mid-sentence with a cutting remark in Latin and to members of other colleges Emmanuel gained the nickname "Mein Camp".

After his retirement as Master he maintained his ties with Emmanuel College, which he used from time to time as a venue for events of the Royal Fine Art Commission Trust.

Personal life

Lord St John was a prominent Roman Catholic. He was also Patron of the Anglican Society of King Charles the Martyr, and Grand Bailiff for England and Wales of the Military and Hospitaller Order of Saint Lazarus (statuted 1910).

He was chairman of the Catholic New Bearings group in the early 1970s whose members included the Bishop Augustine Harris. New Bearings' purpose was to provide support to priests and nuns who were struggling with their vocation and operated independently from the church.

His partner of over fifty years was Adrian Stanford. They met in 1956 at Oxford, where Lord St John taught Stanford law. They entered into a civil partnership shortly before Lord St John's death enabling only the latter to face inheritance tax when he died. Without this 40% of £3.3 million would be instantly liable to tax but lessened by any agricultural, active own business and charity bequests, which are not published in the public calendars of probate.

He was noted for his many personal affectations, including proffering his hand in papal fashion, lapsing into Latin whilst speaking, and deliberately mispronouncing modern words. A loyal monarchist, Lord St John enjoyed a close relationship with the British Royal Family. Soon after his elevation to the Lords, photographs of him in purple bedroom slippers appeared in Hello! magazine while he lounged in the bedroom of his former rectory home in Northampton with a signed photograph of Princess Margaret prominently displayed. All personal notes were written in purple ink. After his elevation to the Lords, he was an active member and used only official House of Lords-headed stationery. He lived in Montpellier Square, Knightsbridge, and had a house in Northamptonshire.

The Catholic Herald, a newspaper that St John-Stevas had contributed to on many occasions, wrote on his death that 'Unlike a lot of people who have trodden the corridors of power, he was not in the least secretive about his experiences. He idolised the Queen Mother, Princess Margaret and Pius IX. His house in Northamptonshire was filled with relics and pictures of all three. He even had a cassock which was supposed to have belonged to the Blessed Pius, and ... on occasions, he wore it to fancy dress parties'.

He died at his home in London on 2 March 2012, aged 82, after a short illness. His homosexuality was summarised by Simon Hoggart in The Guardian obituary note: "He lived in that period where gay politicians never came "out", yet were happy for everyone to know. He lived life as a camp performance."

Distinctions

Arms

Coat of arms of Norman St John-Stevas
Coronet
Coronet of a baron
Crest
A Fallow Deer's Head erased proper in the mouth a Chaplet of Laurel Vert the Attires per fess the dexter Azure and Gules the sinister Gules and Azure
Escutcheon
Tierced in fess Azure Gules and Azure per pale counterchanged in the azure an Open Crown Or in the gules a Lion passant guardant Gold armed and langued Azure
Supporters
Dexter: a Monkey proper; Sinister: a Lion Argent winged Or, both crowned with a Crown Rayonny also Or and each rampant on a Grassy Mount the dexter having a Primrose growing therefrom the sinister a Lily all proper
Motto
Deus Nobiscum (God be with us)

Bibliography

By Norman St John Stevas

  • Before the Sunset Fades: An Autobiography, HarperCollins (2009)
  • The Two Cities, Faber & Faber, London (1984)
  • Pope John-Paul II: His Travels and Mission, Faber & Faber, London (1982)
  • Agonising Choice: Birth Control, Religion and Law, Eyre & Spottiswoode, London (1971)
  • Bagehot's Historical Essays, New York University Press (1966)
  • Law and Morals, Hawthorn Books, New York (1964)
  • The Right to Life, Holt, Rinehart & Winston (1963)
  • Life, Death and the Law, Indiana University Press (1961)
  • Walter Bagehot A study of his life & thought together with a selection from his political writings, Indiana University Press (1959)

Edited by Norman St John Stevas

  • Bagehot, Walter, St John Stevas, Norman (Editor): The Collected Works of Walter Bagehot: Volumes 1–15, The Economist/ Harvard University Press (1965–1986)

References

  1. "Norman St John Stevas – Ancestry.com". ancestry.co.uk.
  2. Barr, Robert (5 March 2012). "Norman St John-Stevas, British politician and Thatcher foe, dies at 82". The Washington Post. Retrieved 7 March 2012.
  3. ^ "Obituary: Lord St John of Fawsley". The Daily Telegraph. 5 March 2012. Archived from the original on 27 August 2012.
  4. The Daily Telegraph, 1 August 2014: Juno Alexander – obituary Linked 2017-03-27
  5. ^ Dennis Kavanagh (6 March 2012). "Lord St-John of Fawsley: Flamboyant politician who fell foul of Margaret Thatcher". The Independent. Archived from the original on 11 April 2012.
  6. "St Edmunds". Archived from the original on 5 May 2012. Retrieved 30 June 2012.
  7. ^ Edward Pearce (5 March 2012). "Lord St John of Fawsley obituary". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 11 April 2012.
  8. "The collected works of Walter Bagehot / edited by Norman St. John-Stevas", National Library of Australia
  9. "The Passing of Baron St. John of Fawsley, 18 May 1929 – 2 March 2012". Bow Group News. Bow Group. Archived from the original on 22 October 2012. Retrieved 11 October 2012.
  10. McSmith, Andy (6 March 2012). "Tributes paid to Lord St John of Fawsley, a political 'one-off'". The Independent. London. Archived from the original on 8 April 2012. Retrieved 6 March 2012.
  11. Roy Strong, The Roy Strong Diaries, 1967–1987 (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1997), p. 277.
  12. "No. 51098". The London Gazette. 22 October 1987. p. 13011.
  13. ^ "Master of the fine arts of survival. Profile: Lord St John of Fawsley". The Sunday Times. 26 May 1996. p. 3.
  14. Werran GR & Dickson MGT. "Prestressed ketton stone perimeter frame: The Queens Building Emmanuel College, Cambridge" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 6 April 2012. Retrieved 6 January 2009.
  15. Gledhill, Ruth (27 November 2008). "Gallery masterpiece is a work of faith that should be in church, says Cardinal". The Times. Retrieved 6 January 2009.
  16. "The Saint John Family". The Times. London. Retrieved 16 November 2024.
  17. McSmith, Andy (6 March 2012). "Tributes paid to Lord St John of Fawsley, a political 'one-off'". The Independent. London. Archived from the original on 8 April 2012. Retrieved 6 March 2012.
  18. Catholic Herald, article by Fr Alexander Lucie-Smith, 7 March 2012
  19. Burns, John F. (13 March 2012). "Norman St. John-Stevas, 82, Tory Dissident". The New York Times. Retrieved 3 August 2022.
  20. "Simon Hoggart's week: Norman St John Stevas, a friend in the Tory camp". The Guardian. 9 March 2012. Archived from the original on 8 April 2012. Retrieved 10 March 2012.
  21. "Life Peerages – S". Cracroftspeerage.co.uk. Retrieved 28 November 2019.

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Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded byHubert Ashton Member of Parliament for Chelmsford
1964–1987 		Succeeded bySimon Burns
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Preceded byThe Viscount Eccles Minister of State for the Arts
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1979–1981 		Succeeded byFrancis Pym
Preceded byHarold Lever Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
1979–1981
Preceded byThe Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge Minister of State for the Arts
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