Hamish Gray, Baron Gray of Contin explained

Honorific-Prefix:The Right Honourable
The Lord Gray of Contin
Office1:Minister of State for Energy
Monarch1:Elizabeth II
Primeminister1:Margaret Thatcher
Term Start1:7 May 1979
Term End1:13 June 1983
Predecessor1:Dickson Mabon
Successor1:Alick Buchanan-Smith
Office:Minister of State for Scotland
Primeminister:Margaret Thatcher
Term Start:13 June 1983
Term End:11 September 1986
Predecessor:The Earl of Mansfield
Successor:The Lord Glenarthur
Office5:Member of Parliament
for Ross and Cromarty
Term Start5:18 June 1970
Term End5:13 May 1983
Predecessor5:Alasdair Mackenzie
Successor5:constituency abolished
Office4:Member of the House of Lords
Lord Temporal
Term Start4:4 July 1983
Term End4:14 March 2006
Life Peerage
Birth Date:28 June 1927
Death Date:14 March 2006
(aged 78)
Party:Conservative

James Hector Northey "Hamish" Gray, Baron Gray of Contin, (28 June 1927 – 14 March 2006) was a Scottish Conservative politician and life peer.

Gray was born in Inverness and educated at the Inverness Royal Academy. His father owned an Inverness roofing firm. He was commissioned into the Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders in 1945 and served in India, during partition. He married Judith Waite Brydon in 1953 and they had two sons and a daughter.

He was elected as an Independent member of Inverness Council in 1965 and at the 1970 general election he was elected to Parliament as the Conservative and Unionist Party Member of Parliament (MP) for Ross and Cromarty. He was appointed to the Whips' Office in 1971, and he served as a front bench Energy spokesman (1975–1979). Upon the Conservatives' return to government in 1979, he was appointed as the Minister of State for Energy under David Howell, where he remained until the 1983 general election, when he was defeated in the new Ross, Cromarty and Skye constituency by the SDP candidate Charles Kennedy.

He was made a life peer in 1983, taking the title Baron Gray of Contin, of Contin, in the District of Ross and Cromarty, and was Minister of State for Scotland from 1983 to 1986.

He served Inverness as Deputy lieutenant (1989), Vice Lord Lieutenant (1994) and Lord Lieutenant (1996–2002).

He died on 14 March 2006 at a hospice in Inverness after a long battle with cancer.