Everything about James Kilfedder totally explained
Sir James Alexander Kilfedder (
16 July 1928 –
20 March 1995) was a
Northern Ireland unionist politician.
James Kilfedder, born in
Kinlouth,
County Leitrim to a family from
Enniskillen, was educated at
Portora Royal School, Enniskillen and
Trinity College, Dublin. He became a barrister, called to the Irish Bar at
King's Inns,
Dublin, in 1952 and the
English Bar at
Gray's Inn in 1958. He practised in
London.
At the
1964 general election, Kilfedder was elected as
Member of Parliament for
West Belfast, as an
Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) member. He lost his seat at the
1966 election to
Gerry Fitt. He was elected again in the
1970 general election for
North Down, and held the seat until his death in
1995.
Kilfedder was elected for North Down in the 1973 Assembly election, signing
Brian Faulkner's pledge to support the White Paper which eventually established the
Sunningdale Agreement but becoming an anti-White Paper Unionist after the election. In 1975 he stood for the same constituency in the
Constitutional Convention election, polling over
three quotas as a UUP member of the
United Ulster Unionist Coalition (UUUC) although he refused to sign the UUUC's pledge of conduct.
He left the UUP in 1977 in opposition to the party's new policy of integration, preferring to advocate the restoration of the
Stormont Administration. For a time he sat as an Independent
Ulster Unionist. He contested the 1979 European Parliament Election under that label, eventually finishing as runner-up with over half a quota having overtaken the UUP leader
Harry West on transfers.
In 1980 he formed the
Ulster Popular Unionist Party (UPUP) and was re-elected under that label in all subsequent elections. He again
topped the poll in the
1982 Assembly election and was elected as Speaker of the Assembly (to
1986). He took the Conservative whip at Westminster. Whilst Speaker he was paid more than the Prime Minister.
On
20 March,
1995, while traveling by train in
London, Sir James died of a
heart attack. He died unmarried, survived by two sisters. Sir James was described as "a phenomenon or perhaps a left-over from a remote era of Northern Irish politics when Ulster was represented by such figures as
Lord Robert Grosvenor, Major
Robin Chichester-Clark,
Stratton Mills, and
Rafton Pounder."
The UPUP didn't outlive him, and the
by-election for his Commons seat was won by
Robert McCartney.
Further Information
Get more info on 'James Kilfedder'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://james_kilfedder.totallyexplained.com">James Kilfedder Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
