Sir Fitzroy MacLean, 1st Baronet

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Sir Fitzroy MacLean, 1st Baronet bigraphy, stories - British Army general

Sir Fitzroy MacLean, 1st Baronet : biography

11 March 1911 – 15 June 1996

Sir Fitzroy Hew Royle MacLean of Dunconnel, 1st Baronet KT CBE (11 March 1911 – 15 June 1996) was a Scottish soldier, writer and politician. He was a Unionist Member of Parliament from 1941 to 1974 and was one of only two men who during the Second World War enlisted in the British Army as a private and rose to the rank of Brigadier, the other being future fellow Conservative MP Enoch Powell.

MacLean wrote several books, including Eastern Approaches, in which he recounted three extraordinary series of adventures: travelling, often incognito, in Soviet Central Asia; fighting in the Western Desert Campaign, where he specialised in commando raids behind enemy lines; and living rough with Tito and his Yugoslav Partisans. It has been speculated that Ian Fleming used MacLean as one of his inspirations for James Bond.

Styles and honours

  • Mr Fitzroy MacLean (1911–41)
  • Mr Fitzroy MacLean CBE MP (1944–57)
  • Sir Fitzroy MacLean of Strachur and Glensluian Bt. CBE MP (1957–74)
  • Sir Fitzroy MacLean Bt. CBE (1974–94)
  • Sir Fitzroy MacLean Bt. KT CBE (1994–96)

In the Soviet Union

In 1934 Fitzroy MacLean was posted to the British embassy in Paris. Bored with the pleasant but undemanding routine, he requested a posting to Moscow in 1937. The two and a half years he spent in the Soviet Union formed the first third of his best known book, the autobiographical Eastern Approaches. MacLean was in Moscow until late 1939, and so was present during the great Stalinist purges, observing the fates of Bukharin and other Russian revolutionaries. Although he was stationed in the capital, MacLean traveled extensively, primarily by train, into remote regions of the USSR which were off limits to foreigners, and was shadowed by the NKVD as he did so.

Later life

MacLean had been elected as Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) for Lancaster in a 1941 by-election. He served briefly as a junior minister at the War Office from 1954 to 1957. In the 1959 general election he switched constituencies to Bute and North Ayrshire where he was re-elected until he retired at the Feb 1974 general election. In his last two years, he was appointed as a member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and Western European Union.

He married Veronica Nell Fraser-Phipps (1920–2005), a Roman Catholic, in 1946. She was the daughter of the 16th Lord Lovat and widow of naval hero Lt. Alan Phipps, who was killed ashore at Leros in 1943. Sir Fitzroy and Lady MacLean had two sons: Charles Edward (born 1946) and Alexander James Simon Aeneas (born 1949), who were brought up in their mother’s faith. MacLean was also stepfather to his wife’s children from her first marriage, Susan Rose "Suki" Phipps (born 1941) and Jeremy Julian Phipps (born 1942), who were not brought up Catholic. Suki married the writer Derek Marlowe, and is stepmother to autistic savant Derek Paravicini. Jeremy became a Major-General in the army, having served in the SAS. James founded the Erotic Review.

Sir Fitzroy was honoured with the baronetcy of MacLean of Strachur and Glensluain in 1957, was made the 15th Hereditary Keeper and Captain of Dunconnel Castle in 1981 and was made a knight of the Most Ancient and Most Noble Order of the Thistle in 1994.

In retirement MacLean wrote extensively. His wide range of subjects included: Scottish history, biographies (including Tito and Burgess), a Russian trilogy and assorted works of fiction. He also contributed to other books, for example writing the foreword to a 1984 biography of Joseph Wolff, the so-called "Eccentric Missionary" in whose footsteps he had travelled to Bukhara almost half a century before.Hopkins, Hugh Evan, Sublime vagabond: the life of Joseph Wolff – missionary extraordinary, foreword by Sir Fitzroy MacLean Bart, Worthing: Churchman, 1984, ISBN 1-85093-002-3

MacLean and his wife managed a hotel at Strachur.Hotel-keeping in the Highlands, The Countryman, Autumn 1977, pp 22-27 In 1964 he commissioned his wartime friend, fellow commando and yacht designer Alfred Mylne II to build the motor yacht Judi of Bute for use around the West Coast of Scotland. MacLean was a patron of Strachur and District Shinty Club. He collected an extensive library, including a full set of early editions of James Bond novels, which sold after his death for over £30,000., Telegraph.