Laura Grimond

Laura Miranda Grimond, Baroness Grimond was a British Liberal Party politician, and the wife of party leader Jo Grimond.

Background

Born in Marylebone, London, into the Bonham Carter family, she was the daughter of Sir Maurice Bonham Carter and his wife, Liberal politician Violet Asquith. She was the granddaughter of Liberal Prime Minister, H. H. Asquith. She was also an elder sister of Mark Bonham Carter, who was the Liberal victor of the 1958 by-election at Torrington and Raymond Bonham Carter, who was the father of actress Helena Bonham Carter.
In 1938, she married Jo Grimond at St Margaret's, Westminster.
The couple had four children:

Andrew Grimond, a sub-editor of The Scotsman, lived in Edinburgh until his suicide at the age of 26.
Grizelda "Gelda" Grimond, who had a daughter Katherine by the film and stage director Tony Richardson.
John Grimond, a former foreign editor of The Economist as Johnny Grimond, now writer at large for the publication, who in 1973 married Kate Fleming, elder daughter of the writer Peter [Fleming (writer)|Peter Fleming] and actress Celia Johnson, and has three children with her. He is the main author of The Economist Style Guide
Magnus Grimond, journalist and financial correspondent, married to travel author Laura Grimond, and has four children.

Political career

Laura Grimond was Liberal candidate for the West Aberdeenshire division at the 1970 General Election. West Aberdeenshire was a seat the Liberals had gained from the Conservatives at the previous general election. The Liberal victor James Davidson decided not to defend his seat and instead campaigned for Laura Grimond. Her prospects of holding the seat lessened when a SNP candidate intervened in the contest. However The Times, the Conservative leaning national newspaper made a point of endorsing her by name; through "an invocation of 'the Asquith ideal', which called strenuously for more Liberal MPs and in particular for Mrs Laura Grimond." In a difficult election for the Liberal Party nationwide, the Conservatives regained the seat, beating her by over 5,000 votes. She did not stand for parliament again. She continued to be active for the Liberal Party at a national level; From 1983 to 1985 she was President of the Women's Liberal Federation. Three times during the mid-1980s she appeared as a party spokesperson on BBC's Question Time. She was also politically active locally in Orkney; She was a councillor for Firth & Harray and chairman of Orkney Islands Council's Housing Committee.

Other

In 1968 Grimond was a co-founder of the Orkney Heritage Society.