Donald_Dewar_First_Minister

October 28, 2018 by Alexander Meldrum

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Donald Dewar (1937 – 2000) – Scottish politician and leader of the devolution movement of the 1990s. He was the first First Minister of Scotland (1999-2000) Donald Campbell Dewar (21 August 1937 – 11 October 2000) was a Scottish politician, the inaugural First Minister of Scotland and an advocate of Scottish devolution. Dewar first entered politics as the Labour Member of Parliament (MP) for Aberdeen South following the 1966 general election. After losing his seat in 1970, he served in the House of Commons again from 1978 until his death in 2000. He served as Secretary of State for Scotland in British Prime Minister Tony Blair's Cabinet from 1997 to 1999, successfully campaigning for a Scottish Parliament in the 1997 Scottish devolution referendum. Having led the Labour campaign in the run up to the first Scottish Parliament election, he subsequently became the Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) for Glasgow Anniesland on 6 May 1999, and was appointed Leader of the Scottish Labour Party a day later and became the first Scottish First Minister as the head of a devolved coalition government with the Liberal Democrats. He died of a brain hemorrhage while in office, and was succeeded as First Minister and Scottish Labour leader by Henry McLeish. Biography Dewar was born in Glasgow on 21 August 1937 as the only child of Alasdair (1897–1973) and Mary Dewar (née Bennett). His father was a dermatologist and a former general practitioner. Both Dewar's parents had ill health during his childhood; his father contracted tuberculosis and his mother suffered from a benign brain tumour when Donald was young. He attended the Glasgow Academy, and was admitted to the University of Glasgow in 1957, where he gained a MA degree in History in 1961, a second-class LLB degree in 1964, and was an editor of the Glasgow University Guardian. Dewar met several future politicians at the university Dialectic Society, including John Smith (who would later become leader of the Labour Party), Sir Menzies Campbell (who would later become leader of the Liberal Democrats) and Derry Irvine (who would serve as Lord Chancellor in the same cabinet as Dewar). At university, he also served as chair of the Glasgow University Labour Club and president of the Glasgow University Union. On 20 July 1964, Dewar married Alison Mary McNair, with whom he had two children: a daughter, Marion, and a son, Ian. In 1972, McNair separated from Dewar and entered a relationship with the Scottish lawyer Derry Irvine. Dewar and his wife divorced in 1973, and he never remarried. Dewar and Irvine never reconciled, even though they later served in the same Cabinet from May 1997 until 1999. Go to Wikipedia for full History

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