Francis Campbell Ross Douglas, Baron
Douglas of Barloch, 1889-1980
Journalist, solicitor and MP
Francis Campbell Ross Douglas, 1st Baron Douglas of Barloch KCMG (21 October 1889 – 30 March 1980), was a Scottish-born journalist, solicitor, and Labour politician whose career spanned local government, Parliament, colonial administration, and the House of Lords.
Early life and career
Born in 1889 (almost certainly in Manitoba, though later educated in Scotland), Douglas studied at the University of Glasgow before entering the legal profession. He became a partner in Douglas & Company, Solicitors, while also working as a journalist. His early public service included membership of the Public Works Loan Board (1936–1946) and the Railway Assessment Committee (1938–1946, as well as the Anglo‑Scottish Railway Assessment Authority (1941–1946).
Parliamentary and local government service
Douglas entered Parliament as Labour MP for Battersea North at the 1940 by‑election. During his six years in the Commons he served as:
- Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Education (1940–1945)
- Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Home Secretary (1945–1946), both posts under James Chuter Ede
- Temporary Chairman of Committees and Chairman of Standing Committees (1945–1946)
Concurrently, he played a major role in London local government as Chairman of the Finance Committee of the London County Council (1940–1946).
Governor of Malta and later life
In 1946 Douglas resigned from Parliament on being appointed Governor and Commander‑in‑Chief of Malta, a post he held until 1949. He was appointed KCMG in 1947 and later received an LLD from the Royal University of Malta.
In 1950 he was raised to the peerage as Baron Douglas of Barloch, of Maxfield in the County of Sussex, and from 1962 until his death he served as a Deputy Speaker of the House of Lords. He was also Vice‑Chairman of the Corby Development Corporation (1950–1962).
Publications
Douglas wrote extensively on land taxation and social economics, including:
- Agriculture and Land Value Taxation (1930)
- Land‑Value Rating: Theory and Practice (1936)
- Rating and Taxation in the Housing Scene (1942)
- Social Science Manual: Guide to the Study of Henry George’s “Progress and Poverty” (1937)
- An abridgement of Henry George’s Protection or Free Trade (1929)
Family
Douglas married twice: first to Minnie Findlay Smith, who died in 1969, and second to Mrs Adela la Crox‑Baudains, who died in 1990. He was a nephew of Dr Carstairs Cumming Douglas.
He was survived by his daughter, Hon. Frances Margaret Douglas, a Fellow of the Royal College of Anaesthetists (1957), who married Kenneth Ulyatt and had issue.
Death
Lord Douglas of Barloch died in March 1980 at the age of 90. With no surviving male heir, the barony became extinct.
See also:
• Douglas of Barloch family
• Barloch
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