Geoffrey Johnson-Smith
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The Right Honourable Sir Geoffrey Johnson-Smith Kt DL PC |
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| Member of Parliament for Wealden East Grinstead (1965-1983) |
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In office 4 February 1965 – 7 June 2001 |
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| Preceded by | Evelyn Emmet |
| Succeeded by | Charles Hendry |
| Member of Parliament for Holborn and St Pancras South |
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In office 8 October 1959 – 15 October 1964 |
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| Preceded by | Lena Jeger |
| Succeeded by | Lena Jeger |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
16 April 1924 Glasgow, Lanarkshire, Scotland, UK |
| Died | 11 August 2010 (aged 86) Sussex, England, UK |
| Nationality | British |
| Political party | Conservative |
| Alma mater | Lincoln College, Oxford |
Sir Geoffrey Johnson-Smith, Kt, DL, PC (16 April 1924 in Glasgow – 11 August 2010) was a Scottish Conservative politician in the United Kingdom. He was a Member of Parliament (MP) from 1959 to 2001, with only a brief interruption in the 1960s. He was also a television presenter.
The son of an electrical engineer, he joined the Royal Artillery straight from Charterhouse School in 1942 and after the war was demobilised as a captain.
At Lincoln College, Oxford, he read PPE. Contemporaries remembered him as Oxford’s best-dressed socialist, though he always insisted he never joined the Labour Party. In his final year he and Robin Day took part in a debating tour of United States run by the English-Speaking Union. From Oxford he joined the British Information Services, serving in San Francisco, where he met his wife, Jeanne, an American doctor whom he married in 1951.
He was later a presenter of the BBC magazine programme Tonight in the late 1950s.
Shortly before the 1959 general election, Cliff Michelmore, Tonight’s presenter, had a hernia operation and Johnson-Smith was promoted to co-host the show for six weeks. His profile was thus at its highest when the election was called, and on 8 October 1959 he ousted the Labour member for Holborn and St Pancras South, Lena Jeger, by 656 votes.
He successfully promoted a bill authorising councils to operate a meals-on-wheels service for the elderly and was soon on the fast track, within six months becoming PPS to ministers at the Board of Trade; in 1962 he moved to the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance.
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