Jack Donaldson, Baron Donaldson of Kingsbridge

Who was Jack Donaldson, Baron Donaldson of Kingsbridge?

John George Stuart Donaldson, Baron Donaldson of Kingsbridge, OBE was a British politician and public servant. He married Frances Lonsdale in 1935. He was a soldier, farmer, prison reformer, consumers' champion and, under Jim Callaghan, Minister for the Arts from 1976 to 1979. Before his appointment as Arts Minister, Lord Donaldson had served for several years as a Minister of State at Britain's N.I.O. at Stormont. He left the Labour Party for the Social Democratic Party and its successors in 1981.

Donaldson was commissioned into the Royal Engineers in 1939 and served throughout the Second World War, reaching the rank of lieutenant-colonel and being appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 1943.

He was created a life peer as Baron Donaldson of Kingsbridge, of Kingsbridge in the County of Buckinghamshire on 20 November 1967.