Humphrey Atkins

Atkins was born on 12 August 1922, in Chalfont St Peter, Buckinghamshire, son of Captain Edward Davis Atkins and Violet Mary (née Preston) and lived in Kenya until the age of three. He and his wife Margaret (née Spencer-Nairn, 1924–2012) had four children, three daughters and one son.[1][2]

Atkins was educated at Wellington College, Berkshire, and served in the Royal Navy from 1940 to 1948. He worked for Nairn's, his wife's family's linoleum business in Kirkcaldy, Scotland, then became a director of a financial advertising agency. He contested the constituency of West Lothian in 1951, and was elected as a Member of Parliament (MP) for Merton and Morden in 1955. He became MP for Spelthorne in 1970.

Atkins was a Conservative Chief Whip from 1973 to 1979, and served as a Secretary of State for Northern Ireland from 1979 to 1981. In September 1981, he was appointed as Lord Privy Seal, which was a role as the chief government spokesman in the House of Commons for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs. This role was necessary because the Foreign Secretary, Lord Carrington, sat in the House of Lords. He resigned in April 1982, along with Lord Carrington, over the Falklands invasion. Atkins was appointed to the Order of St Michael and St George as a Knight Commander (KCMG) in the 1983 Dissolution Honours.[3] He left the House of Commons in 1987 and was created a life peer on 16 October as Baron Colnbrook of Waltham St Lawrence in the Royal County of Berkshire.[4][1]

Atkins died from cancer on 4 October 1996 at the age of 74 in Waltham St Lawrence, Berkshire.[2]

• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Humphrey Atkins
• Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs