Michael Hamilton, who has just died at the age of 82, was the quintessential English Conservative Member, polished, suave, charming, but best of all, appearances did not deceive: "The real item", as Kenneth Clarke put it, "the nicest type of old fashioned MP." He was immensely popular with his colleagues and they took him very seriously. He was a highly intelligent contributor to debate but above all to informal discussion. His fellow Conservative MP, Peter Viggers, recalls that, as a very new Member in 1974, he found Hamilton "friendly, kind, courteous, with more to offer in the tearoom and over dinner than in the Chamber. Never one to push himself, it was in conversation that you realised just how much he had to give."
Tall, good-looking and well spoken, with good connections, a good war and a successful business career, it was no surprise when he chose to enter politics. His father-in-law, Colonel Sir Charles Ponsonby had been the Member for Sevenoaks until 1950 and his brother-in-law, James Ramsden, was already in the Commons. Nor was it any surprise when, two years after entering the House in 1959, he was made an assistant Whip. Less than a year later, in September 1962, he became a Lord Commissioner in the Treasury. The only stumbling block to a successful ministerial career seemed to be the highly marginal nature of his seat, Wellingborough, which he had taken from the long-serving Labour MP, George Lindgren, with a majority of only 606 votes. In 1964, after an extremely close contest, the seat returned to Labour. Hamilton was only 47 votes short of holding it despite the intervention of a Liberal candidate.
Hamilton returned to the Commons under the auspices of John Morrison, a major influence in the Conservative party as Chairman of the 1922 Committee from 1955 until 1964. Within months of the General Election Morrison stepped down from his Salisbury seat to take a peerage and in February 1965 Hamilton was returned at the subsequent bye-election. He celebrated by going out on to the balcony of the White Hart and singing a Wiltshire drinking song, "The vly be on't turmit". He retained the seat in five General Elections and handed it over in 1983 to another Bishop's son, Robert Key
Although an effective debater, he was not given office in 1970; but it is far from clear that he wanted it. He had returned to the board of the Army and Navy Stores in 1964 and was about to become its Vice Chairman. More to the point, he had been outraged by the despoliation of Wiltshire's beautiful Dean Valley by the English China Clay Company. There had been an ostensibly public enquiry in 1967, much of which took place in camera. Hamilton argued that it had been surrounded by unprecedented secrecy. When the inspector found for the company, his indignation was such that he launched a fifteen-year parliamentary campaign in which he made at least ten full-length speeches, including one in 1970 that ran to six pages of Hansard. Not surprisingly some found this obsessive and one minister replying claimed that he was "straying into the realms of obstinacy". But Hamilton had made his point. In 1971 inspectors were instructed not to accede to private hearings. Not content, Hamilton was to leave his mark on the statute book in 1982 when his private member's bill outlawed secrecy in planning enquiries illegal in all but exceptional circumstances.
Michael Aubrey Hamilton was the son of the Rt. Rev. E.K.C. Hamilton, Dean of Windsor and subsequently Bishop of Shrewsbury. He was born on 5 July 1918 and was educated at Radley and University College, Oxford. During the Second World War he served with the 1st Battalion, Coldstream Guards. In the early years after the war, he was abroad in India and North America. He became a Director of the Army and Navy Stores in 1947 and put in a spell with one of their subsidiaries, Genge & Co. In 1952 he became a director of Royal Exchange Assurance and in 1957 a member of the Hops Marketing Board. He briefly gave up his business activities when appointed a Lord Commissioner of the Treasury in 1962, but he returned to the boards of the Army and Navy Stores and Royal Exchange Assurance in 1964 and two years later returned to the Hops Marketing Board.
In 1970 Hamilton served as the United Kingdom representative to the UN General Assembly and in 1976 he attended the US bicentennial celebrations in the same capacity.
Hamilton was less than happy with the choice of Margaret Thatcher as party leader and was increasingly identified with a group of "Wiltshire Wets" led by a close friend, Charles Morrison, the Conservative MP for Devizes. Although as a former whip, he continued to attend occasional whips' dinners, he was more in sympathy with Edward Heath. In 1982 Francis Pym asked him to be his Parliamentary Private Secretary and he was knighted the following year. It was a fitting reward for long years of service on the backbenches, but in retrospect it seems surprising that his career had taken that shape and that his considerable intelligence had not brought him office. Andrew Roth, a close observer of the parliamentary scene, thought his crusading streak had damaged all chances of a successful career.
His main interest was in the field of defence and foreign affairs and he was a staunch supporter of Britain's entry into the EEC, seeing it as a vital bastion against the Soviet Union.
Hamilton had already decided not to contest the 1983 election and when his business career came to an end, he lived out his years at Lordington House, Chichester. He had married Lavinia Ponsonby in 1947 and they had one son and three daughters. All survive him.