Norman St John-Stevas

Norman Antony Francis St John-Stevas, Baron St John of Fawsley, ( ; born Norman Panayea St John Stevas; 18 May 1929 – 2 March 2012) was a British Conservative politician, author and barrister. He served as Leader of the House of Commons in the government of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher from 1979 to 1981. He was Member of Parliament (MP) for Chelmsford from 1964 to 1987 and was made a life peer in 1987. His surname was created by compounding those of his father (Stevas) and mother (St John-O'Connor).

Early life

St John-Stevas was born in London. His birth certificate specified that his Christian names were Norman Panayea St John, and that his father was Spyro Stevas, a hotel proprietor of Greek origin. In his Who's Who entry, he gave his father as Stephen Stevas, an engineer and company director. His mother was Kitty St John O'Connor. His parents divorced, whereupon his mother hyphenated the name St John. He was reputedly closer to his mother than to his father. His older sister was the actress Juno Alexander, first wife of actor Terence Alexander.

St John-Stevas was educated at St Joseph's Salesian School, Burwash, East Sussex, and then at the Catholic school Ratcliffe College, Leicester. He was active in the Young Conservatives as a speaker for Conservative and Catholic causes. He was a contemporary of Gordon Reece, whom he reported to his superiors for atheism.

Subsequently, he was for six months enrolled at the English College, Rome, a seminary for the Roman Catholic priesthood, but found that he had no vocation. He remained a Catholic throughout his life, however. and served as President of the Cambridge Union in 1950. and a JSD degree from Yale University. He was called to the Bar at the Middle Temple in 1952.

Academic and legal career

St John-Stevas was appointed as a lecturer at Southampton University (1952–1953) and King's College London (1953–1956). He then went to Oxford University to tutor in Jurisprudence at Christ Church (1953–1955) and Merton College (1955–1957). He also lectured in the United States and held a visiting professorship at the University of California, Santa Barbara. From 1954 to 1959 he was legal adviser to Sir Alan Herbert's Committee on book censorship. his edition "to great acclaim", in 1951 St John-Stevas stood unsuccessfully for the safe Labour seat of Dagenham. He was later elected as Member of Parliament for the safe Conservative seat of Chelmsford in Essex at the 1964 general election holding this seat until stepping down at the 1987 general election. In later elections, the seat became marginal, and his majority at his final election contest in 1983 was less than a thousand votes.

He opposed Sir Anthony Eden's invasion of Suez in 1956, was a long-standing opponent of capital punishment and immigration restrictions based on race, and favoured a relaxation of the obscenity laws. which became the Sexual Offences Act 1967.

In the later stages of Prime Minister Edward Heath's government, St John-Stevas was Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department of Education and Science (where Margaret Thatcher was the Secretary of State), and the Minister for the Arts (1973–1974).

Following the defeat of Heath's government, St John-Stevas supported Heath in the first ballot of the 1975 Conservative Party leadership election but switched his vote to Thatcher in the second ballot.

Now on the backbenches, Stevas remained loyal to Thatcher whilst criticising Thatcherite economic policies: "He was a One Nation Conservative who looked to Disraeli rather than Milton Friedman".

Chairman of the Royal Fine Art Commission

He was Chairman of the Royal Fine Art Commission from 1985 to 1999. His tenure was wracked by controversy. It was hoped that his appointment would revitalise and popularise the commission, which had not even produced an annual report for many years. Stevas succeeded in "inject[ing] a bit of panache and excitement" into the commission.

The Commission strongly criticised the plans for the Millennium Wheel on London's South Bank even though three of the Commissioners were enthusiastic about it. After an ill-tempered meeting in which Stevas was allegedly rude to the Wheel's architects, Sherban Cantacuzino, the commission's secretary, wrote to the architects saying: "I am sure that he enjoys putting people down; all of us have suffered from his bullying". Some of the college's fellows apparently first had doubts about the wisdom of appointing Stevas when several of his friends were caught naked one night in the Fellows' Garden swimming pool.

Personal life

St John-Stevas was a prominent Roman Catholic. He was also Patron of the Anglican Society of King Charles the Martyr, and Grand Bailiff for England and Wales of the Military and Hospitaller Order of Saint Lazarus (statuted 1910).

He was chairman of the Catholic New Bearings group in the early 1970s, whose members included the Bishop Augustine Harris. New Bearings' purpose was to provide support to priests and nuns who were struggling with their vocation and operated independently from the church.

His partner of over fifty years was Adrian Stanford. They met in 1956 at Oxford, where St John-Stevas taught Stanford law. They entered into a civil partnership shortly before St John-Stevas's death.

He was noted for his many personal affectations, including proffering his hand in papal fashion, lapsing into Latin whilst speaking, and deliberately mispronouncing modern words. Soon after his elevation to the Lords, photographs of him in purple bedroom slippers while he lounged in the bedroom of his former rectory home in Northampton with a signed photograph of Princess Margaret prominently displayed were published in Hello! magazine. All personal notes were written in purple ink. After his elevation to the Lords, he was an active member and used only official House of Lords-headed stationery. He lived in Montpellier Square, Knightsbridge, and had a house in Northamptonshire.

The Catholic Herald, a newspaper that St John-Stevas had contributed to on many occasions, wrote on his death that 'Unlike a lot of people who have trodden the corridors of power, he was not in the least secretive about his experiences. He idolised the Queen Mother, Princess Margaret and Pius IX. His house in Northamptonshire was filled with relics and pictures of all three. He even had a cassock which was supposed to have belonged to the Blessed Pius, and ... on occasions, he wore it to fancy dress parties'.

He died at his home in London on 2 March 2012, aged 82, after a short illness. His homosexuality was summarised by Simon Hoggart in The Guardian obituary note: "He lived in that period where gay politicians never came "out", yet were happy for everyone to know. He lived life as a camp performance."

Distinctions

Grand Bailiff for England and Wales of the Order of Saint Lazarus (statuted 1910)
Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature

Arms

Bibliography

By Norman St John Stevas

Before the Sunset Fades: An Autobiography, HarperCollins (2009)
The Two Cities, Faber & Faber, London (1984)
Pope John-Paul II: His Travels and Mission, Faber & Faber, London (1982)
Agonising Choice: Birth Control, Religion and Law, Eyre & Spottiswoode, London (1971)
Bagehot's Historical Essays, New York University Press (1966)
Law and Morals, Hawthorn Books, New York (1964)
The Right to Life, Holt, Rinehart & Winston (1963)
Life, Death and the Law, Indiana University Press (1961)
Walter Bagehot A study of his life & thought together with a selection from his political writings, Indiana University Press (1959)

Edited by Norman St John Stevas

Bagehot, Walter, St John Stevas, Norman (Editor): The Collected Works of Walter Bagehot: Volumes 1–15, The Economist/ Harvard University Press (1965–1986)

References

Sources

Dennis Kavanagh, 'Lord St-John of Fawsley: Flamboyant politician who fell foul of Margaret Thatcher', The Independent, 6 March 2012.