William Douglas-Home

Early life

Douglas-Home (he later dropped the hyphen from his surname) was the third son of Charles Douglas-Home, 13th Earl of Home, and Lady Lilian Lambton, daughter of the 4th Earl of Durham. His eldest brother was Alec Douglas-Home, Prime Minister from 1963 to 1964.

He was educated at Ludgrove School, Eton College and New College, Oxford, where he read history. His first play, Murder in Pupil Room, was performed by his classmates at Eton in 1926 when he was only fourteen.

On 26 July 1951, he married the Hon. Rachel Brand (who later inherited the barony of Dacre), the daughter of Thomas Brand, 4th Viscount Hampden and 26th Baron Dacre, and Leila Emily Seely. They had four children.

Political career

During the Second World War, Douglas-Home contested three parliamentary by-elections as an independent candidate opposed to Winston Churchill's war aim of an unconditional surrender by Germany. The political parties in the wartime Coalition Government had agreed not to contest by-elections when a vacancy arose in a seat held by the other coalition parties. At the Glasgow Cathcart by-election in April 1942, he won 21% of the votes, and at Windsor in June 1942, he won 42%. In April 1944, he came a poor third at the Clay Cross by-election, losing his deposit.

He had intended to contest the St Albans by-election in October 1943, but communications difficulties with the Army Council prevented him from receiving the necessary permission soon enough to meet the deadline for nominations.

Post-war, Douglas-Home stood twice as the Liberal Party candidate in Edinburgh South, in a 1957 by-election, and the 1959 general election. He told a story in The Observer Magazine that he took a morning off from the 1959 election campaign to go shooting with his brother, four years before the latter became Conservative Prime Minister in 1963. Alec uncharacteristically missed all the birds in the first drive. When William asked him what was wrong, Alec replied "I had to speak against some bloody Liberal last night!" He had been unaware that the "bloody Liberal" was his own younger brother. William's comment was : "I would have given him a lift if I'd known he was going." Previously, William had briefly been the Conservative Party prospective parliamentary candidate for Kirkcaldy Burghs before resigning over foreign policy differences.

The elections in South Edinburgh had done much to revive Liberal support in the city, following as they did on the first win by a Liberal candidate in Newington Ward in the constituency. Party members were dismayed when he abruptly resigned as a member, apparently because he was not called to speak on a motion on the United Nations during a Party Conference.

Military service

Despite his opposition to the policy of requiring the unconditional surrender of Nazi Germany he was conscripted into the Army in July 1940 and joined the Buffs (Royal East Kent Regiment). He went to 161 Officer Cadet Training Unit (161 OCTU) in the buildings of the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, where one of his colleagues was David Fraser. At Sandhurst, he was critical of the war, which he said had been unnecessary. Douglas-Home was commissioned in the Buffs in March 1941. While an officer he stood in the three parliamentary by-elections.

Douglas-Home was assigned to the 7th Battalion of the Buffs, which was converted to tanks as the 141 Regiment Royal Armoured Corps (141 RAC). In the Normandy campaign, 141 RAC was assigned to I Corps, a British formation within the First Canadian Army. In August, First Canadian Army was directed to mop up the German forces cut off in various sea ports in Normandy and Pas de Calais. In the first week of September 1944, the Allies moved against the port of Le Havre. A German garrison under Colonel Hermann-Eberhard Wildermuth was dug in on the hill overlooking the city. Wildermuth had been ordered by Hitler to defend Fortress Le Havre to the last man, and not to surrender.

When the Allied forces invested the city in advance of the planned aerial bombardment and subsequent assault, Wildermuth asked the British commander if the French civilians could be evacuated from the city, but that request was refused. Lieutenant (acting Captain) Douglas-Home was near Le Havre, awaiting the completion of the aerial bombardment. He was to serve as a liaison officer in Operation Astonia, the Allied attack on Le Havre. On the second day after the aerial bombardment had started, he learned of the German request to evacuate the civilians and the Allied refusal. The consequences of the bombardment were apparent to the waiting Allied forces and Douglas-Home refused to participate in the attack. He gave two reasons:

The unconditional surrender policy, which he thought compelled the enemy to fight to the end.

The refusal of civilian evacuation was morally unacceptable to him.

which created a moral obligation for Douglas-Home and he declined to participate.

Playwright

William Douglas-Home wrote some 50 plays, most of them comedies in an upper class setting.

"In the space of a month or two after his release he wrote two plays which were successful in London in 1947. The first, Now Barabbas, was based on his experience in gaol and in the latter some of the characters were drawn from his family."

Although Douglas-Home was a prolific playwright, his works have neither the depth nor the durability of such near contemporaries as Rattigan or Coward. However, his play The Reluctant Debutante (1955) has been adapted twice into film. The first film, called The Reluctant Debutante, released in 1958, featured Rex Harrison and Sandra Dee, with a screenplay by the playwright himself. The second was released in 2003, under the title What a Girl Wants, starring Amanda Bynes, Colin Firth, and Kelly Preston. The remake features a hereditary peer in the House of Lords who disclaims his title to stand for election to the House of Commons. (Douglas-Home's brother Alec was one of the first to do so after the Peerage Act 1963.) Another of Douglas-Home's plays, The Secretary Bird (1968), was later adapted into an Italian film, Duck in Orange Sauce (L'anatra all'arancia; 1975), which starred Monica Vitti and Ugo Tognazzi and was directed by Luciano Salce.

As part of the 1975 centennial season of the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, Douglas-Home wrote a curtain raiser called Dramatic Licence, in which Richard D'Oyly Carte, W. S. Gilbert, and Arthur Sullivan plan the birth of Trial by Jury in 1875. Peter Pratt played Carte, Kenneth Sandford played Gilbert, and John Ayldon played Sullivan.

His other plays included:

The Chiltern Hundreds (1947)

Caro William (1952)

The Bad Samaritan (1953)

The Manor of Northstead (1954)

The Iron Duchess (1957)

Aunt Edwina (1959)

Films

Douglas Home's screenwriting credits include:

Sleeping Car to Trieste (1948)

The Colditz Story (1955) (dialogue)

The Reluctant Debutante (1958), remade as What a Girl Wants (2003)

Follow That Horse! (1960)

Autobiography

Mr Home pronounced Hume; an autobiography. London: Collins. 1979. ISBN 978-0002160766.