Iain Macleod Wife: Was Iain Macleod Married?

Iain Norman Macleod was a British Conservative Party politician and government minister. A playboy and professional bridge player in his twenties, after war service Macleod worked for the Conservative Research Department before entering Parliament in 1950. He was an outstanding orator and debater and was soon appointed Minister of Health, later serving as Minister of Labour.

He served an important term as Secretary of State for the Colonies under Harold Macmillan in the early 1960s, overseeing the independence of many African countries from British rule but earning the enmity of Conservative right-wingers, and the soubriquet that he was “too clever by half”.

Macleod did not contest the first-ever Conservative Party leadership election in 1965 but endorsed the eventual winner Edward Heath. When the Conservatives returned to power in June 1970, he was appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer in Heath’s government but died suddenly only a month later.

Iain Macleod Wife: Was Iain Macleod Married?

Macleod met Evelyn Hester Mason, née Blois, (1915–1999) in September 1939 whilst he was waiting to be called up for army service and she interviewed him for a job as an ambulance driver. After her first husband was killed in the war, they married on 25 January 1941. The Macleods had a son and a daughter, Torquil and Diana, who were born in 1942 and 1944 respectively.

They had a somewhat stormy marriage in which they retained a strong bond despite Macleod conducting a number of what his biographer describes as “romances” with other women (he quotes love letters written by Macleod but does not specifically say they went as far as sexual affairs).

As was common for MPs’ wives of the era, Eve looked after constituency matters whilst her husband concentrated on his career at Westminster.