Professor Esmond Wright

'Media don' and Conservative MP

Esmond Wright, historian and politician: born Newcastle upon Tyne 5 November 1915; Professor of Modern History, Glasgow University 1957-67; MP (Conservative) for Glasgow Pollok 1967-70; Director, Institute of US Studies and Professor of American History, London University 1971-83 (Emeritus); vice-chairman and honorary treasurer, Automobile Association 1971-85, vice-president 1985-2003; Principal, Swinton Conservative College 1972-76; vice-chairman, Border TV 1976-81, chairman 1981-85; married 1945 Olive Adamson; died Masham, North Yorkshire 9 August 2003.

Esmond Wright first came to public attention in the late 1950s as a radio and television commentator on current affairs. Although English by birth, a grammar school boy from Newcastle, he had been appointed in 1946 to the history department at Glasgow University, becoming Professor of Modern History in 1957. From his base in Scotland, he became well known both north and south of the border as one of the early "media dons".

In 1967 he entered Parliament. He had no strong political ambitions and it might be said that he became a Member of Parliament almost by accident. In that year there was a by-election in the strong Labour seat of Pollok, near Glasgow. He stood as a Conservative candidate but had no expectation of winning the seat (when his parliamentary candidature was announced, people reacted by asking, but for what party?) This was a time when the Scottish Nationalist Party was beginning to make its presence felt as a political force. The SNP at this election stole enough votes from Labour to allow Wright to be elected as Conservative MP (and persuaded Harold Wilson that he had to take the SNP seriously). He was not re-elected in the general election of 1970.

Wright's lack of partisan political commitment enabled him to establish good relations with members of all parties in the House. This brought one extremely beneficial result, when the future of the Fulbright programme was called in question by a threat by the British government to withdraw its financial support, to which the American government responded in kind. The Fulbright Act had been passed in 1946 and provided grants for thousands of American students to study abroad and foreign students to study in America.

Together with colleagues and with help from the American Embassy, Wright was a prime mover in arranging a meeting at the Mansion House, at which he was a principal speaker, with speakers from other main parties. As a result of the meeting, both governments withdrew their objections and the day was saved for the Fulbright Programme.

Esmond Wright was born in Newcastle in 1915 and, as with so many of his generation, his career was interrupted by military service. He joined the Army in 1940 where he reached the rank of lieutenant-colonel before he returned to civilian life at the end of the war.

Just before the Second World War he had won a Commonwealth Fund Fellowship which he held at the University of Virginia. This defined the second part of his career, as an academic historian with a special interest in the United States. In 1971 he became Director of the Institute of American Studies and Professor of American History in London University, and remained in that post until 1983. His interest in the media took him to the post of Vice-Chairman and then Chairman of Border Television between 1976 and 1985.

His academic interests were not surprising for a politician (though Wright would not have used that word to describe himself). He would have been the first to acknowledge that he was not a dedicated research scholar; perhaps interpreter would be a more appropriate description. His own words on Thomas Jefferson might have been applied to himself: "His interests were catholic, and in the best sense amateur". He simply loved his work, in whatever field. Blessed with a pleasant and melodious voice, he was a superbly eloquent lecturer of a calibre that has few counterparts in the new century.

He studied the establishment of the American nation and the formative years of the Republic. He wrote on both Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson. One of his early essays was entitled "Thomas Jefferson and the Jeffersonian Idea" and appeared in a pioneering collection of essays entitled British Essays in American History, edited by H.C. Allen and C.P. Hill in 1957. That Wright was able to empathise both with Jefferson and Hamilton perhaps reflects his lack of deep ideological commitment to any British political party.

Wright was one of the founding fathers of the British Association for American Studies and was its Chairman between 1965 and 1968. Between 1966 and 1983 he was a member of the Marshall Aid Commemoration Commission. His voluminous writings brought him wide recognition on both sides of the Atlantic; the award which gave him the greatest pleasure was that of the Franklin Medal in 1988.

Among his many extra-mural appointments was one which he regarded with some amusement. Although neither a car-driver nor car-owner, he was honorary treasurer of the Automobile Association, and then its vice-president, from 1971 to 1985.

Esmond Wright's presence in any gathering, whether formal or informal, always introduced an air of calm. Never appearing ruffled or under pressure, he was a congenial companion and conversationalist. One never heard him utter an unkind word about anyone.

Shortly before he was due for retirement, he suffered a horrendous accident which in effect ended his career. While crossing Southampton Row on a pedestrian crossing he was struck by a car which carried him for several yards on its bonnet before throwing him onto the road. Wright came round in University College Hospital not knowing how he had got there. Miraculously he survived, but his brain was affected and he was never quite the same again. He was aware of his disability and once said to me, "Whatever there is inside my brain since my accident, it isn't the real me." He could still write and deliver public lectures with his usual elegance, but could not respond quickly enough to participate in a question-and-answer session.

His life continued for another 15 years, in secluded retirement with his wife Olive at Masham, North Yorkshire, where he had for a time been Principal of Swinton Conservative College (1972-76).

Despite his success as a radio and television commentator, Esmond Wright was an unassuming, modest man. On one occasion, a colleague had invited Esmond and myself to dinner at his London club. In the taxi on the way, the colleague said, "If either of you would like me to nominate you for membership, I will be glad to do so." As we got out of the taxi, a doorman from the club came to the taxi and said, "Mr Wright, your room for tonight is booked. I will bring you the key."' Esmond did not say a word.

Jim Potter

In the first three days of May 1962, all five candidates in the West Lothian by-election were interviewed in depth and at length for television by this new-fangled professor / interlocutor Esmond Wright, writes Tam Dalyell. He was all the more probing for his courtesy. Years later, he told me that he saw his job as being to extract from the candidates what we really believed could be done for Scotland.

My agent Jimmy Boyle laconically remarked to me, as Labour candidate: "Lucky for you, Tam, that Esmond Wright is a Labour sympathiser." The SNP agent, Councillor Jimmy McGinley, told me, "We thought Esmond Wright wanted the SNP to win." The Liberal candidate David Bryce said that he was under the impression that Wright was a Liberal. The Communist candidate, Gordon MacLennan, a seasoned politician, chuckled that "Wright was most fair to the party". The only camp which complained about Wright was the Tories.

So it caused some astonishment when this most fair-minded but cunningly charming interrogator was transmogrified into the Conservative candidate at the Glasgow Pollok by-election in the spring of 1967. On 17 April, Wright made his maiden speech, on an important day in the Budget debate. Listening to him, I thought that he would soon be promoted to the Conservative Treasury team, and I believe that, had he retained his seat, he would have been one of Ted Heath's Treasury ministers.