Colin Vereker, 8th Viscount Gort

Who was Colin Vereker, 8th Viscount Gort?

Colin Leopold Prendergast "Kim" Vereker, 8th Viscount Gort MHK, JP was an Irish peer.

Gort was the son of Leopold George Prendergast Vereker and Helen Marjorie Campbell, and the grandson of the Hon. Foley Charles Prendergast Vereker, the second son of the fourth Viscount. He was educated at Sevenoaks School in Kent. He joined the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve and fought in World War II, rising to the rank of Lieutenant-Commander and being Mentioned in Despatches. He was a director of Royal Skandia IoM, Invesco Fund Managers IoM, Euronav IoM and Eurofish IoM.

In 1962 Gort was a Justice of the Peace for Castletown in the Isle of Man. Between 1966 and 1971 he was a Member of the House of Keys, the lower house of the Parliament of the Isle of Man. He succeeded to the title of Viscount Gort and Baron Kiltarton of Gort on the death of his first cousin once removed, Standish Vereker, 7th Viscount Gort, in 1975.

He married Bettine Mary Mackenzie Green, on 4 July 1946. Gort died in 1995 aged 78.

The titles passed to his son Foley Vereker, the ninth Viscount, who also lives on the Isle of Man.