Donald Campbell Dewar, M.A.,LLB, Scotland's First Minister

Donald Campbell Dewar [1], (21 August 1937 – 11 October 2000) was a Scottish politician, the inaugural First Minister of Scotland and an advocate of Scottish devolution.

Dewar first entered politics as the Labour Member of Parliament (MP) for Aberdeen South following the 1966 general election. After losing his seat in 1970, he served in the House of Commons again from 1978 until his death in 2000.[1] He served as Secretary of State for Scotland in British Prime Minister Tony Blair's Cabinet from 1997 to 1999, successfully campaigning for a Scottish Parliament in the 1997 Scottish devolution referendum.

Having led the Labour campaign in the run up to the first Scottish Parliament election, he subsequently became the Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) for Glasgow Anniesland on 6 May 1999, and was appointed Leader of the Scottish Labour Party a day later and became the first Scottish First Minister as the head of a devolved coalition government with the Liberal Democrats.

Biography Dewar was born in Glasgow on 21 August 1937 as the only child of Alasdair (1897–1973) and Mary Dewar (née Bennett). His father was a dermatologist and a former general practitioner. Both Dewar's parents had ill health during his childhood; his father contracted tuberculosis and his mother suffered from a benign brain tumour when Donald was young.

He attended The Glasgow Academy, and was admitted to the University of Glasgow in 1957, where he gained a MA degree in History in 1961, a second-class LLB degree in 1964, and was an editor of the Glasgow University Guardian.

Dewar met several future politicians at the university Dialectic Society, including John Smith (who would later become leader of the Labour Party), Sir Menzies Campbell (who would later become leader of the Liberal Democrats) and Lord Irvine of Lairg (who would serve as Lord Chancellor in the same Cabinet as Dewar). At university, he also served as chair of the Glasgow University Labour Club and president of the Glasgow University Union.

On 20 July 1964, Dewar married Alison Mary McNair, with whom he had two children: a daughter, Marion, and a son, Ian. In 1972, McNair separated from Dewar and entered a relationship with the then Derry Irvine, a prominent Scottish barrister in London. Dewar and his wife divorced in 1973, and he never remarried.[3] Dewar and Lord Irvine of Lairg never reconciled, even though they later served in the same Cabinet from May 1997 until 1999.

Member of Parliament He worked as a solicitor in Glasgow after graduating from university, and was also a member of the Labour Party, and soon turned his sights towards being elected to parliament. In 1962, he was selected as the Labour candidate for the Aberdeen South constituency. In the 1964 general election, he failed to win the seat, but won it at the 1966 general election at the age of 28—defeating Priscilla Tweedsmuir by 1,799 votes.

In his maiden speech to the House of Commons in the same year, Dewar spoke against a proposed increase on potato tax. His speech became his first political success: as the tax was repealed the following year in 1967. Also in 1967, Dewar was made a Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Education Secretary Anthony Crosland, with whom Dewar later confessed to having never establishing a rapport—saying Crosland was a "very odd man".

Dewar remained in that position at the Department of Education until 1969, in which year Dewar opposed a visit to Aberdeen by the Springbok rugby team and staged a silent vigil near the team's ground. In April 1968, he was proposed for a Minister of State position by Roy Jenkins, but was not appointed. Dewar lost his constituency seat to the Conservative candidate Iain Sproat at the 1970 general election by over 1,000 votes.

Out of parliament Dewar spent much of the 1970s looking for another parliamentary seat. He hosted a Friday evening talk show on Radio Clyde, and in June 1971 was beaten by Dennis Canavan when he applied for the seat of West Stirlingshire. He worked as a solicitor for much of that decade and became a reporter on children's panels and was involved with the Lanarkshire local authority. Dewar became a partner in Ross Harper Murphy, in 1975.

In September 2009, Dennis Canavan said Dewar reacted callously when his son was diagnosed with skin cancer in 1989. The disease eventually killed him. Canavan said Dewar remarked, "Oh no! That's all we need. He was mad enough before but I shudder to think what he'll be like now."

Return to Westminster Donald Dewar was selected for the seat Glasgow Garscadden by a majority of three, after Dewar's friend in the Amalgamated Union of Engineering Workers MP Willie Small died unexpectedly. He was returned to parliament at a by-election on 13 April 1978, a crucial victory which was seen as halting the rise of the Scottish National Party. In Scotland's first referendum on devolution, held in March 1979, he campaigned for a "Yes" vote alongside the Conservative Alick Buchanan-Smith and the Liberal Russell Johnston. Though they won a narrow majority, it fell short of the 40% required, contributing to the downfall of the Callaghan Government, in May 1979.

Opposition Dewar gained a parliamentary platform as chairman of the Scottish Affairs Select Committee. After a year honing his inquisitorial skills, he joined the front bench in November 1980 as a Scottish affairs spokesman when Michael Foot became party leader. In 1981, as the Labour Party divided itself further due to internal disagreement, Dewar was almost deselected in his constituency by hard left activists, but he successfully defended himself against this threat.

He rose quickly through the ranks, becoming Shadow Scottish Secretary in November 1983. On 21 December 1988, Dewar was in Lockerbie after the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103,[5] as the member of the Shadow Cabinet in charge of Scottish affairs. In 1992, John Smith made him Shadow Social Security Secretary and three years later, Dewar was made a Chief Whip for the Labour Party by Tony Blair.

In government At the 1997 general election, he became MP for Glasgow Anniesland, which was mostly the same constituency with minor boundary changes. Labour won this election by a landslide, and Dewar was given the post of Secretary of State for Scotland. He was able to start the devolution process he dreamt of years earlier, and worked tirelessly on creating the Scotland Act, popularly referred to as "Smith's unfinished business". When ratified, this was to give Scotland its first Parliament for nearly 300 years.

First Minister of Scotland 'There shall be a Scottish parliament.' Through long years, those words were first a hope, then a belief, then a promise. Now they are a reality. —Dewar, at the official opening of the Scottish Parliament on 1 July 1999.

Dewar (left) with Queen Elizabeth II and Presiding Officer David Steel (right) at the opening of the Scottish Parliament, July 1999 In January 1998, he confirmed that he would stand for a seat in the Scottish Parliament.

The first elections to the Scottish Parliament were held on 6 May 1999, with Dewar leading the Scottish Labour Party against their main opponents, the Scottish National Party led by Alex Salmond.

He was elected as the Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) for Glasgow Anniesland, having the unusual distinction of being both an MP and MSP for the same constituency. Although Scottish Labour won more seats than any other party, they did not have a majority in Parliament to allow them to form an Executive without the help of a smaller party. A deal was agreed with the Scottish Liberal Democrats to form a coalition, with Dewar agreeing to their demand for the abolition of up front tuition fees for university students.

On 13 May 1999, Dewar was nominated as First Minister, and was officially appointed by the Queen on 17 May at a ceremony in the Palace of Holyroodhouse. He later travelled to the Court of Session to be sworn in by the Lord President and receive the Great Seal of Scotland.

On 16 June, Dewar set out the legislative programme for the Executive which included: an Education bill to improve standards in Scottish schools; land reform to give right of access to the countryside, a bill to abolish the feudal system of land tenure; and a bill to establish National Parks in Scotland.

Death and funeral

In 2002, a nine-foot (2.7 m) bronze statue of Dewar was erected outside Glasgow's Royal Concert Hall in a ceremony attended by then-Prime Minister Tony Blair, and other Scottish politicians. In April 2000, Dewar was admitted to hospital for tests on his heart, following a previous test where a minor irregularity was discovered. In May 2000, he had surgery to repair a leaking heart valve, and was forced to take a three-month break from Parliament, with Deputy First Minister Jim Wallace taking over as Acting First Minister. He returned to work on 14 August 2000.

Dewar dealt with the 2000 exam results fiasco and the lorry drivers' strike, and attended the Labour Party conference in Brighton, but at the end of September he told the historian Tom Devine in Dublin that if there was no surge of the energy of old, he would have to reappraise the situation within a few months.

On 10 October 2000 around lunchtime, Dewar sustained a fall. He seemed fine at first, but later that day suffered a massive brain haemorrhage which was possibly triggered by the anticoagulant medication he was taking following heart surgery. He died the following day in Edinburgh's Western General Hospital, never having regained consciousness. He was 63 years old.

Dewar's funeral service was held at Glasgow Cathedral, amid scenes of mourning unknown for a politician in Scotland's largest city. He was cremated on 18 October 2000, and his ashes were scattered at Lochgilphead in Argyll.

"Although he has become something of a political legend, Donald would have abhorred any attempt to turn him into some kind of secular saint. He would have been horrified at a Diana-style out-pouring of synthetic grief at his untimely death." — Iain MacWhirter, Sunday Herald, 15 October 2000.

[1] Wikipedia