Honorific-Prefix: | The Right Honourable |
The Earl of Kinnoull | |
Birth Name: | George Harley Hay |
Birth Date: | 30 March 1902 |
Death Place: | London, United Kingdom |
Nationality: | British |
Party: | Labour |
George Harley Hay, 14th Earl of Kinnoull (30 March 1902 - 19 March 1938), styled as Viscount Dupplin from 1903 to 1916, was a Scottish peer. His titles were Earl of Kinnoull, Viscount Dupplin and Lord Hay of Kinfauns in the Peerage of Scotland; and Baron Hay of Pedwardine in the Peerage of Great Britain.[1]
Hay was the son of Edmund Alfred Rollo George, Viscount Dupplin (12 November 1879 - 30 May 1903) and Gladys Luz Bacon, granddaughter of Major-General Anthony Bacon[2] and Lady Charlotte Harley. His father died in 1903 of scarlet fever. He had been visiting Sir Edward Hamilton of Iping when he fell ill.[3]
Hay was educated at Eton College, and succeeded to the earldom in 1916 on the death of his grandfather, Archibald Hay, 13th Earl of Kinnoull.[4]
He entered the House of Lords as a Conservative, but in 1930 joined the Labour Party. Although he stated "I personally entirely disagree with the principle of hereditary legislators", and favoured abolition of the House of Lords "in its present form",[5] he rarely missed a debate. In June 1933, it was stated that Lord Hay had not missed a session for the preceding 12 months, and overall had an overall attendance rate of 97%.[4]
The earl worked as a stockbroker and for an insurance company for some time. He filed for bankruptcy in 1926, which garnered press coverage.[6] [7]
He was married twice; the first, in 1923, to Enid Margaret Hamlyn Hamilton-Fellowes, a granddaughter of Sir Frederick Wills, 1st Baronet. They had one son:
They were divorced in 1927.[9] He later married Mary Ethel Isobel, daughter of Dr. Ferdinand R. Meyrick and famed nightclub owner Kate Meyrick, and had four children:[4]
He died at a London nursing home, of an unspecified lengthy illness (later reported as pancreatic cancer), at age 35.[4] [12] The earldom passed to his only living son, William.