James Davidson

James Duncan Gordon Davidson (10 January 1927 – 29 June 2017) was a British Liberal politician and farmer. He served as Member of Parliament for Aberdeenshire West from 1966 to 1970, when he chose not to stand again because of a family illness. Before politics Davidson's father was naval captain Alastair Gordon Davidson, of a gentry family of Tillychetly and Dess, formerly of Inchmarlo, all in Aberdeenshire. Captain Davidson's father, Henry Oliver Duncan Davidson (1854–1915) was 4th of Tillychetly; his eldest son Duncan Gordon, 5th of Tillychetly, inherited Dess from a cousin, becoming 7th of that place. James Davidson succeeded his uncle Duncan in 1954, becoming 6th of Tillychetly. Henry Oliver Duncan Davidson was a teacher and housemaster at Harrow School; he was the first housemaster of Winston Churchill. Alastair Davidson had married (Mildred) Valentine Blomfield, daughter of Colonel Frederick William Osborne, Royal Australian Artillery, of Sydney, Australia. Davidson was born at Chatham, Kent, where his father was commissioning a new vessel. Davidson served as a naval officer and naval attache at the British Embassy in Moscow before establishing himself as an Aberdeenshire farmer He was educated at the Royal Naval College, Dartmouth and Downing College, Cambridge, where he studied for a Certificate of Competence in Russian. In 2003, he published a book about Scottish Naval History, Scots and the Sea: A Nation's Lifeblood. Whilst a Lieutenant in the Navy, he served aboard HMS Vanguard, a battleship prepared for the Royal cruise to South Africa; he danced with Queen Elizabeth and Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret, and attended Princess Elizabeth's 21st Birthday. For this and his other naval service he was awarded the M.V.O. Davidson retired from the navy in 1954, in which year he succeeded his uncle Duncan as head of the family, inherited Tillychetly and its farmlands, and married Katherine, secretary to the Canadian chargé d'affaires and daughter of William Jamieson, of Ontario, Canada.