I was very sorry to hear that James Lindesay-Bethune, 16th Earl of Lindsay, died on October 9.
I’m late to this because I missed the obituary published by the Telegraph two weeks ago, so I only read about it this morning when The Times published a belated obituary in today’s edition.
Jamie Lindsay, as he preferred to be called, was a hereditary peer for 36 years. In 1995, at the fag end of the Major government, he was appointed parliamentary under-secretary of state at the Scottish Office with responsibility for agriculture, fisheries and the environment.
Although the 1997 Labour landslide effectively ended his brief ministerial career, his popularity and reputation as an active, hard-working peer ensured that he kept his seat in the Lords when the Blair government purged the house of almost 700 hereditary peers in 1999, leaving only 92 in parliament.
The 15th Earl of Lindsay kept his seat in the Lords until April this year when the current Labour government removed the last of the hereditary peers. He may have owed his seat to his family and a quirk of history, but this was a man whose career outside politics included ‘the chairmanships of Scottish Quality Salmon, Assured British Meat, the UK Accreditation Service, RSPB Scotland and Scotland’s Rural College, and presidencies of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society, the Royal Highland Show, the International Tree Foundation and the National Trust for Scotland’ (Telegraph).
He was also a keen cigar smoker but I didn’t know much about him until Claire Fox, who was awarded a peerage by Boris Johnson in 2020, told me about the (unofficial) terrace smoking club at the House of Lords and mentioned that it had been founded by the Earl of Lindsay. Describing the small terrace (and shelter) where up to 20 peers would congregate at different times during the day, Claire added that the ‘club’ included affiliated and non-affiliated peers, and even one or two bishops.
Armed with this information I wrote to Lindsay several times and always received a polite and friendly reply. I also invited him to several Forest events but prior commitments prevented him from joining us until last year when he attended our annual lunch at Boisdale of Belgravia. I’m not suggesting there’s a connection but he subsequently made several important interventions as the Tobacco and Vapes Bill progressed through parliament. According to the Dundee Courier:
His last speech in the chamber, only a few weeks before the hereditary peers departed, was an impassioned contribution opposing aspects of the government’s Tobacco and Vapes Bill.
A lifelong cigar smoker, Jamie took issue with any suggestion that hand-rolled Cuban cigars were a gateway to nicotine addiction among teenagers.
Meanwhile, according to the Telegraph:
For three weeks every summer the Lindsays and assorted friends would decamp to Knoydart on the west coast of Scotland. Lindsay was never happier than when he was in the hills or at the helm of a boat with a cigar clamped between his teeth …
He operated at full tilt on only four hours’ sleep. Long after even the hardiest of house guests had given up and gone to bed, he could be found reading Trollope in the library in a cloud of cigar smoke, with his terrier Minstrel asleep on his lap.
Sadly, he was only 70 when he died from complications following an aneurysm.
See: The Earl of Lindsay, well-liked Scottish landowner appointed farming minister in the John Major era (Telegraph)
The 16th Earl of Lindsay at the Forest annual lunch in 2025
