David Drummond, 8th Earl of Perth

John David Drummond, 17th Earl of Perth PC (13 May 1907 – 25 November 2002), styled Viscount Strathallan from 1937 to 1951, was a Scottish peer, banker and politician. Because of the history of the earldom of Perth (attainder 1715, reversed 1853), he is sometimes considered the 8th Earl of Perth.

Background and education

Drummond was the son of Eric Drummond, 16th Earl of Perth, and was educated at Downside School and Trinity College, Cambridge.

Career

After beginning a banking career, he went to Paris during the Second World War to help Noël Coward in a propaganda office, then returned to London to work in the War Cabinet office and later at the Ministry of Production. After the war he joined Schroders in 1945 and was a partner until 1956. He was a Representative Peer for Scotland from 1952 to 1963, and in 1957 he was appointed Minister of State for Colonial Affairs in Harold Macmillan's government, a post he held until 1962. He was appointed a Privy Counsellor in 1957. Lord Perth was also First Crown Estate Commissioner from 1962 to 1977, Chairman of the Ditchley Foundation from 1963 to 1966 and Chairman of the Reviewing Committee on Export of Works of Art from 1972 to 1976.

Family

Lord Perth married Nancy Fincke (died 1996), an American, in New York in 1934. They had two sons. Lord Perth died in November 2002, aged 95, and was succeeded by his son, John Eric Drummond, 9th Earl of Perth.

References

• Obituary:The Earl of Perth, Daily Telegraph, 29 November 2002

External links

• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by the Earl of Perth