Patrick Maitland, 17th Earl of Lauderdale

Patrick Francis Maitland, 17th Earl of Lauderdale, FRGS (17 March 1911 – 2 December 2008), styled The Honourable Patrick Maitland, Master of Lauderdale from 1953 to 1968, was a Scottish Unionist politician.

Educated at Lancing, West Sussex, and Brasenose College, Oxford (B.A. Hons., 1933), Maitland then entered a career in journalism. During the Second World War he served as Special Correspondent (Balkans & Danubian) for The Times 1939–1941, and in the latter year was also Special Correspondent for the Washington News Chronicle. He was then War Correspondent for the News Chronicle in the Pacific, Australia, and New Zealand 1941–1943, was with the US Marines at Guadalcanal, flew as a tail gunner in a B17 and then joined the Political Intelligence Department of the Foreign Office where he ran the Yugoslav Department British Foreign Office, 1943–1945.

In 1951, he was elected a member of parliament (MP) for Lanark, after its previous MP (and future Prime Minister) Alec Douglas-Home was disqualified after succeeding to his father's peerage. Maitland held the seat until 1959 when it was taken by Labour candidate Judith Hart. From 1957 to 1959 he was Founder-Chairman of the Expanding Commonwealth Group at the House of Commons, where he was also Chairman of the Sub-Committee on Energy, and Transport.

Maitland succeeded his brother, The Reverend Alfred Maitland, 16th Earl of Lauderdale in the earldom in 1968. He was also a member of the Conservative Monday Club; and was Chairman of the House of Lords Select Committee on EEC Scrutiny 1974–1979, Vice-Chairman of the Association of Conservative Peers Committee 1980–1987, Vice-Chairman and co-founder of the parliamentary group for Energy Studies 1980–1999, appointed Chairman of the 'Church in Danger' All-Party Parliamentary Group 1988. He was a Life member of the Society for Individual Freedom. At the time of his death, aged 97, he was the second oldest living former Member of Parliament, exceeded only by Bert Hazell.

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