Walter Elliot

Walter Elliot (19 September 1888 – 8 January 1958) was a politician of Scotland's Unionist Party prominent in the interwar period. He was elected to the House of Commons of the United Kingdom in 1918, and besides an interval of months in 1923–24 and 1945–46, remained in parliament until his death. His Cabinet roles were as the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food in the National Government (1931–1935) of Ramsay MacDonald; as the Secretary of State for Scotland in the National Government (1935–1937) of Stanley Baldwin; and as Minister of Health in Neville Chamberlain's National Government (1937–1939) and the short-lived Chamberlain war ministry. While in medical training at university he was President of the Glasgow University Union and served in the First World War, winning the Military Cross on two occasions. In the course of his career he was Member of Parliament for the constituencies of Lanark, Glasgow Kelvingrove, and Combined Scottish Universities. He was also Lord High Commissioner to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, Rector of the University of Aberdeen, and Rector of the University of Glasgow. Early life He was born in Lanark the eldest son of William Elliot, of the livestock auctioneers' firm Lawrie and Symington, and his wife, Ellen Elizabeth Shiels. His mother died during the birth of his youngest sibling. The children were thereafter raised by the mother's relatives in Glasgow. They appear to have had a company, Shiels, Elliot and Nelson, who made farming equipment including the Shiels patent milking machine. Elliot was raised in Glasgow and educated at the high school in Lanark and The Glasgow Academy. One of his friends from the academy, through university and beyond, was the playwright Osborne Henry Mavor. From 1905 he studied science and medicine at the University of Glasgow. In the election for Rector of the University of Glasgow in 1908, Elliot assisted the Liberal Club campaign to elect the Liberal David Lloyd George, supported the candidacy of George Curzon, 1st Marquess Curzon of Kedleston, and according to Henry Mavor, ultimately voted for Keir Hardie, founder of the Labour Party. In 1909–10 he was editor of the Glasgow University Magazine. He co-wrote the university song "Ygorra". Elliot graduated BSc in 1910. As a postgraduate he was President of the Glasgow University Union, 1911–12. While in the British Army's Glasgow University Officers' Training Corps, he befriended John Boyd Orr.