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Proposer of the Toast “The Immortal Memory of Robert Burns”
at the 50th Anniversary Supper of Let it Blaw
1931
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It’s almost certain that John Colville was never a member of ‘Let it Blaw’. As the local MP for the ‘Midlothian and Peebles Northern’ constituency, he was probably invited as a Guest Speaker on the occasion of the Club’s 50th Anniversary.
Extract from Wikipedia :
Colonel David John Colville, 1st Baron Clydesmuir PC GCIE (13 February 1894 – 31 October 1954) was a Scottish Unionist politician, and industrialist. He was director of his family’s steel and iron business:David Colville & Sons.
The only son of John Colville MP of Cleland Lanarkshire, he was educated at Charterhouse and at Trinity College, Cambridge. He served in World War I with the 6th Battalion of the Cameronians (Scottish Rifles), and was wounded.
He was unsuccessful National Liberal candidate for Motherwell at the 1922 General election. He was unsuccessful again at a by-election in January 1929 for Midlothian and Peebles Northern, but won the seat at the general election in May 1929, remaining as the constituency’s MP until 1943. He served in the National Government as Parliamentary Secretary to the Department of Overseas Trade from 1931 to 1935, as Under-Secretary of State for Scotland from 1935 to 1936, as Financial Secretary to the Treasury from 1936 to 1938 and as Secretary of State for Scotland from 1938 until 1940.
Colville left Parliament in 1943 to become Governor of Bombay, a post he held until January 1948. He acted as Viceroy and Governor-General of India, in 1945, 1946 and 1947. On his return from India he was raised to the peerage as Baron Clydesmuir, of Braidwood in the County of Lanarkshire. From 1950 to 1954 Lord Clydesmuir served as a Governor of the BBC.
Colville was appointed a Privy Counsellor in 1936 and was a Brigadier in the Royal Company of Archers. He was Lord Lieutenant of Lanarkshire from 1952 until his death.