James Chichester-Clark

James Dawson Chichester-Clark, Baron Moyola, PC, DL (12 February 1923 – 17 May 2002) was the penultimate Prime Minister of Northern Ireland and eighth leader of the Ulster Unionist Party between 1969 and March 1971.

In 1924 James Clark, Snr.

changed the family name to Chichester-Clark by deed poll, thus preventing the old Protestant Ascendancy name Chichester (his wife's maiden name) from dying out.

On his mother's side the family are descended from the Donegall Chichesters and were the heirs of the Dawsons of Castledawson, who had originally held Moyola Park.

Educated, against his own wishes, at Selwyn House, Broadstairs, and then Eton, Chichester-Clark left school and entered adulthood in the midst of the Second World War.

On joining the Irish Guards, the regiment of his grandfather, in Omagh he began his year-long training at the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, before receiving his commission as a second lieutenant.

Chichester-Clark was an officer in the 1st Battalion, Irish Guards, part of 24th Guards Brigade attached to British 1st Infantry Division, and participated briefly in the Anzio landings.

As Dehra Chichester, she had been an MP for the county of Londonderry until 1929 when she stood down for a first time.

Chichester-Clark's father, replaced her in 1929 when the county was split, but he suddenly died in 1933.

Dehra, by then remarried, willingly returned to Northern Ireland from England, and won the ensuing by-election.

He retained the seat for the remainder of the Parliament's existence, and so the South Londonderry area was represented by three generations of the same family for the entire period of the Northern Ireland House of Commons.

Between 1929 and the last election in 1969, the family was challenged for the seat on only two occasions, the second being in 1969, when future Westminster MP Bernadette Devlin stood, attracting 39% of the vote

He was injured on 23 February 1944 by an 88m shell as he and his Platoon Sergeant took their first look at the ground in the 'gullies' to the west of the Anzio-Albano road.

His company were all but wiped out, and he spent most of his war in hospital recovering from injuries, the effects of which stayed with him throughout his life.

Following the war, his military career took him from the dull duties of the post-war occupation of Germany, to Canada as aide-de-camp to Harold Alexander, 1st Earl Alexander of Tunis, then Governor General of Canada.

The popularity and competence of his senior officer made this uneventful two-year period of Chichester-Clark's life the most remarkable element of his pre-parliamentary career.

He married widow Moyra Haughton (née Morris) in 1959.

Lady Moyola's first husband, Capt. Thomas Haughton from Cullybackey (he was part of the linen firm of Frazer & Haughton), had been killed in the Nutts Corner air crash – in which she, whilst pregnant, was seriously injured and suffered a broken neck.

They had two daughters (Tara and Fiona), in addition to Moyra's son Michael from her previous marriage.

He was Member of the Northern Ireland Parliament for South Londonderry for 12 years, beginning at the by-election to replace his grandmother, Dame Dehra Parker in 1960.

He stopped being an MP when the Stormont Parliament was suspended and subsequently abolished with the introduction of Direct Rule by the British Government.

Chichester-Clark's election as UUP leader resulted from the sudden resignation of Terence O'Neill after the ambiguous result of the preceding general election.

His term in office was dominated by both internal unionist struggles, seeing the political emergence of Ian Paisley from the right and Alliance Party of Northern Ireland from the left, and an emergent Irish nationalist resurgence.

On returning from Canada, Chichester-Clark continued in the Army for several years, refusing promotion to seniority before retiring a major in 1960.

In an uncontested by-election in 1960, he took over the South Londonderry seat in the Northern Ireland Parliament held by his grandmother, Dame Dehra Parker, since 1933.

Chichester-Clark made his maiden speech on 8 February 1961 during the Queen's speech debate.

For the remainder of Lord Brookeborough's Premiership, Chichester-Clark remained on the back benches.

It was not until 1963, when Terence O'Neill became Prime Minister of Northern Ireland, that Chichester-Clark was appointed assistant whip, and a month later when Bill Craig was promoted to the Ministry of Home Affairs, Chichester-Clark took over as Government Chief Whip.

Accounts of the period are that Chichester-Clark enjoyed the Whip's office more than any other he was to subsequently hold in politics.

This despite including references to anti O'Neill MP and future DUP Westminster MP, Johnny McQuade, and the occasional "good row".

From the outset, O'Neill took the unusual decision to allow Chichester-Clark to attend and speak at all cabinet meetings while Chief Whip.

Proving a competent parliamentary party administrator, O'Neill added Leader of the House of Commons to Chichester-Clark's duties in October 1966, a promotion that made him a full member of the Cabinet.

He was also sworn into the Privy Council of Northern Ireland in 1966.

In 1967, O'Neill sacked his Minister of Agriculture, Harry West, for ministerial impropriety, and Chichester-Clark was appointed in his place, a position he retained for two quiet years.

On 23 April 1969, he resigned from the Cabinet one day prior to a crucial Parliamentary Party meeting, claiming that he disagreed with the Prime Minister's decision to grant universal suffrage in local government elections at that time.

In March 1971, with his health suffering under the strain of the growing political strife, he resigned, having failed to secure extra military resources from the British Government.

Chichester-Clark was born as James Dawson Clark at Moyola Park, Castledawson, County Londonderry, his family's ancestral home.

He was the eldest of three children of James J. Lenox-Conyngham Clark and Marion Caroline Dehra, née Chichester.

His brother was Robin Chichester-Clark and his sister, Penelope Hobhouse, the garden writer and historian.

Lady Moyola was a cousin of Colonel Sir Michael McCorkell, Lord-Lieutenant of County Londonderry 1975–2000, Lord Moyola served as his Vice Lord-Lieutenant.