Robin Chichester-Clark was for the first half of his professional life a politician; in the second he was a businessman (and perhaps more notably and happily) an active fundraiser for charity.
For a politician – especially one from Northern Ireland – he also possessed an unusually wide range of sympathies and interests.
He was born on January 10th, 1928, the son of James Chichester-Clark, a politician and retired naval officer, and his wife Marion. His older brother James was to become prime minister of Northern Ireland, his sister Penelope became a garden designer and historian.
He was still a boy when his father died and (his mother having remarried) he was raised at Moyola Park near Castledawson by his maternal grandmother Dame Dehra Parker, the only female cabinet minister in any Northern Ireland government between 1921 and 1972. His education at the Royal Naval College, Dartmouth was unhappy and he left without entering the senior service.
Magdalene College, Cambridge, where he read history and then law, was more suited to him.
After graduation he worked first at Glyndeboune and then for Oxford University Press.
Politics was a family trade. Both his father and grandmother were MPs; his ancestor George Dawson had been a minister in the administration of his brother-in-law Sir Robert Peel.
Chichester-Clark entered politics at the early age of 27 – then the second-youngest member at Westminster – when he was elected for Londonderry City and County in 1955. He served as a whip under Harold Macmillan and Sir Alec Douglas-Home and later (1972-1974) as minister of state at employment under the premiership of Edward Heath, his friend as well as his leader.
Moderate
His politics were always centrist and pro-European at Westminster and, at home, moderate and non-sectarian. His opposition to Ian Paisley emerged early on and persisted. His attendance at the requiem of a Catholic friend led to trouble with the Orange Order late in the 1960s. Together with his brother he framed reform proposals in October 1968 – a programme realised when James succeeded Terence O’Neill in April 1969.
He had been close to O’Neill both politically and professionally but their friendship was broken when he declined to persuade James from resigning from the cabinet – a resignation which precipitated that of O’Neill.
Politics became increasingly stressful as the Troubles continued, a stress which fractured his first marriage.
He left politics in 1974 and was knighted but declined a peerage, hoping (in vain as it turned out) that he would be selected for an English seat. He worked in commercial recruitment until his retirement but his later years were devoted to charitable work.
He founded and chaired RAFT, the medical charity and worked with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (and later) the House of Illustration. He was chairman of the Arvon Literary Foundation and his work with this charity brought him the friendship of Ted Hughes, PD James and Seamus Heaney, the last being a childhood neighbour – the differences in the political and religious backgrounds of the two Ulstermen did not affect their closeness.
Charm
He was tall and distinguished in appearance. His charm and geniality were unaffected, his altruism was instinctive, his good humour was constant.
Although he lived in London for much of his life he loved the countryside, whether in England or Northern Ireland. It was in a rural churchyard that his remains were laid to rest.
His charitable work reflected his cultural interests. Music was always a solace, literature a passion; few critics, let alone few politicians, can have read so many of Trollope’s nearly 50 novels as he had (39 by his estimation).
Artistic and cultural interests and abilities were inherited by his five children: Emma (author and illustrator); Mark (a singer and festival director); Sophia (Montessori teacher); Adam (barrister); and Tom (composer and musician). His children survive him. In 1953 Robin married Jane Goddard (who also survives him) and they divorced in 1972. In 1974 he married Caroline Bull. They were on holiday in Norfolk when Chichester-Clark died suddenly on August 5th. He was buried near his second home in Somerset.
–