Lord Orr-Ewing
Although Ian Orr-Ewing had a modestly successful ministerial career, culminating in a four year spell as Civil Lord of the Admiralty, and subsequently chaired the Metrication Board, it is likely that he will be best remembered as one of the foremost campaigners in the Conservative party for the breaking of the BBC's television monopoly. He was well qualified to speak on the issue since he had been Television Outside Broadcasts Manager for the BBC from 1946 to 1948 before putting his expertise as an electronic engineer at the disposal of Cossor Radar Ltd and the radio firm A.C.Cossor Ltd. Together with two other young MPs, John Profumo and John Rodgers, he was the driving force in the Conservative party group set up by the Chief Whip in February 1951 to consider policy on the broadcasting services and it was in response to their paper, 'The Future of British Broadcasting, that the Cabinet included in their White Paper of May 1952 the cautious sentence "that in the expanding field of television provision should be made to permit some element of competition."
Orr-Ewing would have been the first to concede that this could not have been achieved without the sterling support of Lord Woolton as chairman of the Cabinet's Broadcasting Committee. Together with the Home Secretary, Maxwell Fyfe, and Selwyn Lloyd, who had written the minority report when the Beveridge Committee considered the future of broadcasting after the war, he acted as the voice of the backbenchers in Cabinet. The faced powerful opposition headed by Lord Salisbury and the Prime Minister was hesitant.
Initially competition was to wait upon the BBC's completion of a nationwide network of transmitters, but by the time the White Paper was debated in June 1952, continual pressure by Orr-Ewing and his fellow backbenchers had already secured some Government backtracking on the timing. With the aid of the Advertising Practitioners and a Popular Television Association created by key figures in the industry with the full backing of Conservative Central Office, the backbench group kept the pressure on and the Government was finally persuaded in 1953 to legislate. The Independent Television Authority came into being in 1954. In common with some of his fellow MPs, Orr-Ewing was subsequently to come under fire for furthering his own commercial interests, most notably when H.H.Wilson produced a study of their campaign in 1961. However, his denials were totally convincing. Like many of those entering Conservative politics postwar, he believed passionately in competition and regarded monopolies of any sort as enemies of the public good.
Orr-Ewing was the son of a prosperous sugar broker, who was educated at Harrow and at Trinity College, Oxford. He had read physics and served a graduate apprenticeship with EMI 1934-7. He joined the infant BBC Television Service in 1938, but on the outbreak of war took up a commission in the RAFVR. He served in North Africa, Italy and western Europe, ending the war as Chief Radar Officer on Eisenhower's SHAEF Air Staff. He was twice mentioned in despatches and in 1945 was awarded the OBE. After demobilisation, he returned to the BBC as their first Television Outside Broadcasts Manager in 1946, and was responsible for coverage of Princess Elizabeth's wedding in 1947 and the Olympic Games. Irritated at the lack of investment in modern equipment, he resigned in 1949. Thereafter his interests lay in the radio industry.
In 1950 he won Hendon North from Labour with a majority of 2,255 and held it for five elections. After standing down in 1970, he accepted a life peerage from Edward Heath in the following year. As a member of the Association of Scientific Workers and a Governor of Imperial College, he was a natural choice to become joint Secretary of the Parliamentary Scientific Committee in 1950, but he was elected also as Secretary of the Conservative backbench Air Sub Committee. In 1951 he became PPS to his fellow Harrovian, the Minister of Labour, Sir Walter Monckton and was an invaluable aide at a time when his minister was under fire for being too soft on the unions. His own standing on the backbench was high and in 1956 he was elected joint Secretary of the 1922 Committee. From there progress to junior office seemed inevitable. He spent two years as Parliamentary Under Secretary at the Air Ministry at a time when the RAF's role was being severely questioned by the Minister of Defence and in 1959 was shifted sideways to the similar but more prestigious post at the Admiralty. After the 1959 election he was promoted to be Civil Lord of the Admiralty, where he had responsibility for certain matters of materiel, most notably the nuclear submarine programme. When the Admiralty was abolished in 1963, Orr-Ewing stood down from the Government to take on the chairmanship of the United Carr group of companies and was made a baronet for his services.
After the 1964 election, he became a very active and influential backbencher, serving as Vice Chairman of the Conservative 1922 Committee from 1966 to 1970 and as Vice President of the Parliamentary Scientific Committee from 1965 to 1968. He was a member of the Select Committee on Science and Technology and the Defence Committee, of which he was Vice Chairman. Outside the House he presided over the Council of the Electronic Engineering Association 1969-70.
After his ennoblement, he participated vigorously in the House of Lords and served as deputy Chairman of the Association of Conservative Peers 1980-86. He was also a regular contributor of letters to the press on the nuclear deterrent, the bias of the BBC and the rights of the smoker. He was a member of the Royal Commission on Standards of Conduct in Public Life 1975-6, but his most prominent role in public life was as first deputy Chairman and then from 1972 until 1977 Chairman of the Metrication Board, which oversaw the conversion of British weights and measures to the metric system. Since he was a keen European, he rode the inevitable controversy surrounding the move with a fair degree of equanimity.
Orr-Ewing was a keen sportsman who played cricket for the Lords and Commons and edited the volume celebrating their exploits from 1850 to 1988. He was an expert skier and co-founded the Lords and Commons Ski Club. In 1956 he inaugurated the annual Anglo-Swiss Parliamentary Grand Slalom. He skied well into his 80s and served as President of the National Ski Federation 1972-6. He also played a lively game of tennis.
His marriage to Joan McMinnies on the day war broke out produced four sons, the eldest of whom, Simon, born in 1940 succeeds to the baronetcy.