Hamish Gray, Baron Gray of Contin

Who was Hamish Gray, Baron Gray of Contin?

James Hector Northey Gray, Baron Gray of Contin, PC, DL, known as Hamish Gray, was a Scottish politician and life peer.

Gray was born in Inverness and educated at the Inverness Royal Academy. His father owned an Inverness roofing firm. He was commissioned into the Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders in 1945 and served in India, during partition. He married Judith Waite Brydon in 1953 and they had two sons and a daughter.

He was elected as an Independent member of Inverness Council in 1965 and at the 1970 general election he was elected to Parliament as the Conservative and Unionist Party Member of Parliament for Ross and Cromarty. He was appointed to the Whips' Office in 1971, and he served as a front bench Energy spokesman. Upon the Conservatives' return to government in 1979, he was appointed as the Minister of State for Energy under David Howell, where he remained until the 1983 general election, when he was defeated in the new Ross, Cromarty and Skye constituency by the SDP candidate Charles Kennedy.

He was made a life peer in 1983, taking the title Baron Gray of Contin, of Contin, in the District of Ross and Cromarty, and was Minister of State for Scotland from 1983 to 1986.