| 词条 | Peter Kirk (English politician) |
| 释义 |
| honorific-prefix = | name = Sir Peter Kirk | honorific-suffix = | image = Sir Peter Kirk at NPG.jpg | office = Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence |primeminister = Edward Heath |1blankname = Sec. of State |1namedata = The Lord Carrington | term_start = 1970 | term_end = 1973 | predecessor = | successor = | office1 = Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for War Financial Secretary to the War Office |primeminister1 = Sir Alec Douglas-Home |1blankname1 = Sec. of State |1namedata1 = James Ramsden | term_start1 = 21 October 1963 | term_end1 = 1 April 1964 | predecessor1 = James Ramsden | successor1 = | office2 = Member of Parliament for Saffron Walden | parliament2 = | predecessor2 = R. A. Butler | successor2= Alan Haselhurst | term_start2 = 23 March 1965 | term_end2 = 17 April 1977 | office3 = Member of Parliament for Gravesend | parliament3 = | majority3 = | predecessor3 = Sir Richard Acland | successor3 = Albert Murray | term_start3 = 26 May 1955 | term_end3 = 15 October 1964 | birth_date = {{Birth date|1928|05|18|df=yes}} | birth_place = | death_date = {{death date and age|1977|04|17|1928|05|18|df=y}} | death_place = | nationality = British | spouse = Elizabeth Mary, née Graham | party = Conservative | children = 3 sons | alma_mater = Trinity College, Oxford | occupation = Politician }} Sir Peter Michael Kirk, (18 May 1928 – 17 April 1977) was a British writer, broadcaster, Conservative politician, minister in the governments of Alec Douglas-Home and Edward Heath, and leading European Parliamentarian. Early lifeThe elder son and fourth child of Kenneth Escott Kirk (Bishop of Oxford 1937 - 1954), he was educated at Marlborough and at Trinity College, Oxford, where he obtained an MA in modern history having first studied languages (including a period at the University of Bern studying Old High German). He attended the congress in the Hague in 1948 from which the European Movement sprang, and was President of the Oxford Union Society in 1949. CareerIn the early 1950s he was diplomatic correspondent on the Kemsley Newspapers (part of Ian Fleming's Mercury News Service), and after his election to Parliament he continued to write freelance with regular contributions to (amongst others) the Telegraph, Truth, the National and English Review, Blackwood's, the Spectator, the Berkshire Chronicle, the Trenton Times (USA), and from 1961 German press and television. He made documentary films for J. Arthur Rank and frequently broadcast on British radio and television. At the 1955 general election, he was elected as Member of Parliament (MP) for Gravesend, defeating outgoing MP Sir Richard Acland, who had left the Labour Party to stand as an independent candidate. Kirk was re-elected in Gravesend at the 1959 election, but lost his seat at the 1964 general election to Labour's Albert Murray. In February 1965, the former Conservative Chancellor and Deputy Prime Minister Rab Butler was elevated to the peerage and thereby gave up his parliamentary seat in Saffron Walden. Kirk was the successful candidate at the March 1965 by-election, and retained the seat until his death. Under Alec Douglas-Home's premiership, Kirk was Under-Secretary of State for War from 1963 to 1964. When the Conservatives regained power in 1970, Prime Minister Edward Heath appointed him as Under-Secretary for Defence for the Royal Navy from 1970 to 1973, during which time he visited every British naval establishment both at home and abroad. He led the first Tory delegation to the European Parliament in 1973, a mixed team of peers and MPs who retained their Parliamentary seats and workload on a dual mandate. Kirk's main interests were in foreign affairs and defence, being a British Parliamentary representative on the Council of Europe from 1956 - 1963 and again from 1966 - 1970. He also served on the British-American Parliamentary delegation and various committees of the Western European Union. Having been too young to fight in World War II (although greatly affected by it), he heard Winston Churchill's call for a United States of Europe in September 1946, and devoted much of his career to bringing this about. He was opposed to the British intervention in Suez in 1956, but a strong supporter of Britain's entry into the then Common Market in 1973,and a leading campaigner to keep the country there in the 1975 referendum. A fluent German and French speaker, he particularly admired the way that the Germans had reconstructed their country and developed a peaceful, stable and well-run political system in the aftermath of 1945. At home he campaigned vigorously for the abolition of the death penalty. He detested dictatorships of any kind and greatly lamented the loss of eastern Europe to communism; he was a firm believer that Europe's destiny included the communist states of eastern Europe, although he did not live to see them included in NATO or the European Union. Kirk was knighted in 1976. After his death in 1977 at 48, the by-election for his Saffron Walden seat was won by the Conservative candidate Alan Haselhurst. The [https://www.kirkfund.org.uk/ Peter Kirk Memorial Fund] was set up in his honour, to give scholarships to young people to study modern Europe and its institutions. Personal lifeA devout Anglican, he was a delegate to the World Council of Churches in Delhi in 1961. His publications included One Army Strong (Faith Press, 1958) and a monograph on T.S. Eliot in Thirteen for Christ (ed. Melville Harcourt, Sheed & Ward, 1963). He was married in August 1950 to Elizabeth Mary, daughter of Richard Brockbank Graham and Gertrude née Anson. They had three sons, including Matthew Kirk, who was later the British Ambassador to Finland. His interests included opera and fell walking with his family. References
External links
| title = Member of Parliament for Gravesend | years = 1955–1964 | before = Richard Acland | after = Albert Murray }}{{succession box | title = Member of Parliament for Saffron Walden | years = 1965–1977 | before = Rab Butler | after = Alan Haselhurst }}{{succession box | title = Baby of the House | years = 1955–1956 | before = Philip Clarke | after = Marcus Kimball }}{{s-end}}{{Babies of the House}}{{DEFAULTSORT:Kirk, Peter Michael}} 17 : 1928 births|1977 deaths|Conservative Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies|Knights Bachelor|UK MPs 1955–59|UK MPs 1959–64|UK MPs 1964–66|UK MPs 1966–70|UK MPs 1970–74|UK MPs 1974|UK MPs 1974–79|Alumni of Trinity College, Oxford|People educated at Marlborough College|Presidents of the Oxford Union|English Anglicans|Conservative Party (UK) MEPs|MEPs for the United Kingdom 1973–79 |
| 随便看 |
|
开放百科全书收录14589846条英语、德语、日语等多语种百科知识，基本涵盖了大多数领域的百科知识，是一部内容自由、开放的电子版国际百科全书。