Henry Wilson, Baron Wilson of Langside

rdf:langString Henry Wilson, Baron Wilson of Langside

rdf:langString Henry Stephen Wilson, Baron Wilson of Langside, PC, QC (21 March 1916 – 23 November 1997) was a Scottish lawyer, Labour politician and life peer. The son of James Wilson, solicitor, Glasgow, and Margaret Young, he was educated at the High School of Glasgow and Glasgow University. He joined the Army in 1939 and served with the Highland Light Infantry and Royal Armoured Corps during World War II. He was called to the Scottish Bar in 1946, and served as an Advocate Depute 1948–51 and as Sheriff-substitute at Greenock 1955–56 and in Glasgow 1956–65. He took silk in 1965. He was unsuccessful Labour candidate for Dumfriesshire in 1950 and 1955 and for Edinburgh West in 1951. He remained a Labour supporter for many years until the advent of the SDP. However during the 1979 United Kingdom general election, The Glasgow Herald, reported him as one of several former Labour MPs and ministers who were backing Margaret Thatcher's Conservatives instead of the incumbent Labour government led by James Callaghan. He was Solicitor General for Scotland 1965–67and Lord Advocate 1967–70. He was Director of the Scottish Courts Administration 1971–74 and Sheriff Principal of Glasgow and Strathkelvin, 1975–77. He was a member of the Social Democratic Party 1981–92, when he sat in the House of Lords as a cross-bencher. He was appointed a Privy Counsellor in 1967 and created a life peer on 3 March 1969 with the title Baron Wilson of Langside, of Broughton in the County of the City of Edinburgh.