William Buchan, 3rd Baron Tweedsmuir
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The Right Honourable The Lord Tweedsmuir |
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|---|---|
| Baron Tweedsmuir | |
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In office 20 June 1996 – 29 June 2008 |
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| Preceded by | John Norman Stuart Buchan |
| Succeeded by | John William de l'Aigle Buchan |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 10 January 1916 |
| Died | June 29, 2008 (aged 92) |
| Spouse(s) | Nesta Crozier (div. 1946) Barbara Ensor (div. 1960) Sauré Tatchell |
| Parents |
John Buchan, 1st Baron Tweedsmuir Susan Charlotte Grosvenor |
| Alma mater |
New College, Oxford Eton College The Dragon School |
William James de L'Aigle Buchan, 3rd Baron Tweedsmuir (10 January 1916 – 29 June 2008), also known as "William Tweedsmuir", was an English peer and author of novels, short stories, memoirs and verse. He was the second son of the writer and Governor General of Canada, John Buchan.
Brought up at Elsfield Manor, outside Oxford, he frequently wrote poetry as a boy and appeared as "Bill" in his aunt Anna Masterton Buchan's popular novels, written under the pen-name "O. Douglas". His mother, Susan Charlotte Grosvenor, was a close relative of the Duke of Westminster. Visitors to the family home included a 15-year-old Jessica Mitford in the summer of 1932, T. E. Lawrence, a week before his death in 1935, and, that same year, Virginia Woolf, who called him "a simple".
Buchan attended Dumpton School in Dorset and the Dragon School in Oxford, then Eton College, and won the Harvey English verse prize there. At New College, Oxford, he "enjoyed a riotous year", according to an obituary in The Daily Telegraph, before dropping out. A different picture of his personality was given by an obituary in the Liverpool Daily Post, which described him during his schoolboy period as "a shy and solitary figure, and this mood continued into New College, Oxford". Visiting the set of Alfred Hitchcock's film version of The Thirty-Nine Steps, a novel written by his father, the young man became interested in the movie industry, and Buchan senior got him a job working with Hitchcock at Gaumont-British Motion Picture Corporation. His salary as third assistant director was a token five shillings a week, so he lived off an allowance from his parents and lodged in London with the writer Elizabeth Bowen. It was becoming clear to him that he was being edged out of his job at Gaumont-British when a throat ailment resulted in an operation, causing him to leave sooner. To recuperate, he went to Canada, where his father was serving as governor general. On the order of the Canadian prime minister, Mackenzie King, the young Buchan was barred, along with his brother Alastair, from a nightclub outside Ottawa. King disapproved of Buchan's parents, in particular regarding his father as a "libertine".
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