Harry Primrose, 6th Earl of Rosebery

Cricket and horse racing

As Lord Dalmeny he was a prominent cricketer. He played two first-class matches for Middlesex in 1902. He served as captain of Surrey from 1905 to 1907. He played in 102 first-class matches in all, scoring 3551 runs at an average of 22.47, including two centuries. His highest score was 138 against Leicestershire in 1905, when he added 260 for the sixth wicket in 130 minutes with J. N. Crawford.^[3][4] He was a hitter of notable power^[5] and though never consistent he could on occasions "knock the best bowling all over the field", as when he hit 58 against Nottinghamshire on a difficult wicket at The Oval in 1905. Against Essex in 1906 he scored 52 in 37 minutes in the first innings and 58 not out in 45 minutes in the second.^[6] In 1907, he resigned the Surrey captaincy because of conflicts with his parliamentary duties.^[7]

Rosebery was also a notable racehorse breeder and owner. He owned the Mentmore and Crafton Studs, which had been gifted to him by his father in 1922.^[8] His most successful horse was Blue Peter, which in 1939 won the Two Thousand Guineas, the Blue Riband, the Eclipse Stakes and the Epsom Derby. Another of his horses, Ocean Swell, sired by Blue Peter, won the 1944 Derby and the 1945 Ascot Gold Cup. Rosebery was elected to the Jockey Club in 1924, and later became president of the Thoroughbred Breeders' Association.^[7] He donated the prize money from his 1944 Derby and 1945 Ascot Gold Cup wins as seed money to help launch the Edinburgh International Festival.^[9]

Political career

At the age of 21, at the insistence of his father, he reluctantly resigned his commission to stand as Liberal candidate for Midlothian (which was also known as Edinburghshire), where the Roseberys had long been prominent landowners. He was elected in the Liberal landslide in the 1906 election, one of almost 400 Liberals to be returned, and, at the age of 24, the youngest serving MP. He chose not to stand in the 1910 election, stating in a letter to his agent that his "politics are not far enough advanced to meet the views of the Liberal Party as at present constituted."^[7]

An obituary in The Times described him as a "dutiful rather than an enthusiastic participant in party politics", firmly resisting pressure to return to the House of Commons after the war.^[10]

Rosebery entered the House of Lords on the death of his father in 1929, taking his seat as the second Earl of Midlothian, a title bestowed on his father in 1911 but never used. He continued to be known as the Sixth Earl of Rosebery.^[7]

The same year he was appointed Lord Lieutenant of Midlothian,^[11] a post he held until 1964.^[12]

In 1938 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. His proposers were Hugh Macmillan, Baron Macmillan, Sir Thomas Henry Holland, James Pickering Kendall and James Watt.^[1]

In February 1941, during the Second World War, he was appointed Regional Commissioner for Civil Defence in Scotland. When the wartime coalition government broke up in 1945, Winston Churchill formed a caretaker administration to hold office until the 1945 general election. The new government was composed of members of the Conservative Party and the small groups which had allied with it in the National governments in office 1931–1940. Amongst these allies was the National Liberal Party to which Rosebery belonged.

One of the most unexpected appointments Churchill made was to install Rosebery as a member of the Privy Council and Secretary of State for Scotland. Both men had served together in the Liberal Parliamentary Party in the 1906–1910 Parliament. The caretaker Ministry was in office May to July 1945. So brief was his tenure at the Scottish Office that during the Royal Commission on Scottish Affairs (1952–4) he declined to give evidence on the grounds that he did not know what to say.^[13] Reputedly, his last words prior to his departing from the Scottish Office were "Well. I didn't make a bad job of this, did I? Didn't have the time".^[14]

Later life

He was created a Knight of the Order of the Thistle (KT) in 1947 by King George VI. Rosebery was President of the National Liberal Party 1945–1957. From 1951 to 1974 he was the president of the influential Scottish conservation organisation the Cockburn Association.^[15] He was appointed Chairman of the Royal Fine Art Commission for Scotland in 1952. He also served as president of the Royal Scottish Corporation. He was a member of the royal commission on justices of the peace (1946–8) and was himself a JP for many years.^[7]