Robert McCrindle

Sir Robert Arthur McCrindle, (19 September 1929 – 8 October 1998), known as Robert McCrindle, was a Conservative politician. He was Member of Parliament for Billericay from 1970–74 and Brentwood and Ongar from 1974-92 (following boundary changes).

Born in Glasgow, McCrindle was educated at Allan Glen's School. Sir Robert served in the RAF from 1947–1949 and spent nearly 2 years at RAF Changi, Singapore at the time of the Malaya emergency. In 1953 he married Myra Anderson with whom he had two sons.

McCrindle first contested Dundee East in the 1959 general election. He moved from Scotland to Essex in 1964, when he was defeated at Thurrock, and was elected for Billericay in 1970, serving until it was merged into the Basildon constituency in February 1974.

He was the returned for the new Brentwood and Ongar constituency, which re-elected him until his retirement at the 1992 general election, when he was succeeded by Eric Pickles.

McCrindle was pro-European and to the left of centre on social policy issues. He was a regular rebel on such issues as the uprating of child benefit and NHS charges. Despite this he was a loyal Tory, and Margaret Thatcher arranged for him to be knighted in 1990, shortly before she left office. For seven days he was a Parliamentary Private Secretary to Mark Carlisle, a Home Office minister in the last days of the Heath government of 1974, but otherwise spent his career as a back-bencher.

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