Knox Cunningham

Sir Samuel Knox Cunningham, 1st Baronet, (3 April 1909 – 29 July 1976) was a Northern Irish barrister, businessman and politician. As an Ulster Unionist politician at a time when the Unionists were part of the Conservative Party, he was also a significant figure in United Kingdom politics as Parliamentary Private Secretary to Harold Macmillan. His nephew was Sir Josias Cunningham.

Early career Cunningham was from an Ulster family. His father was Samuel Cunningham, and his mother was Janet Muir Knox of Dalry, Ayrshire. His elder brothers were Colonel James Glencairn Cunningham, Josias Cunningham (a stockbroker), and Dunlop McCosh Cunningham, the owner of Murray's tobacco works in Belfast. He was sent to the Royal Belfast Academical Institution, and then to Fettes College in Edinburgh. He then won a place at Clare College, Cambridge - where he was heavyweight boxing champion.

Parliament In the 1955 general election, Cunningham was chosen as the new Ulster Unionist MP for South Antrim. He was a delegate to the Council of Europe and Western European Union Parliamentary Assembly from 1956 to 1959. He also served as Parliamentary Private Secretary to Jocelyn Simon, Financial Secretary to the Treasury, from 1958. In 1959 he was made a Queen's Counsel.

After the 1959 general election, Cunningham was picked by Prime Minister Harold Macmillan as his Parliamentary Private Secretary, responsible for the Prime Minister's relations with backbench Conservative MPs. He was also a member of the National Executive of the Conservative and Unionist Party. When Macmillan resigned, he awarded Cunningham a baronetcy in his resignation honours.

Post-Parliamentary career Cunningham remained on the backbenches, known as one to the right of Ulster Unionism and a friend of Ian Paisley, through the rest of the 1960s, he frequently clashed with Harold Wilson during this period, but decided to retire at the 1970 general election. He was Master of the Drapers Company in 1973–74. He was Provincial Grand Master of the Masonic Order in Gloucestershire from 1970 to 1976. He was a member of the Apprentice Boys Club in Derry and attended the 275th Anniversary of the shutting of the gates. Throughout his life he represented the old landed interests of Ulster and remained personally wealthy through family inheritance. He died suddenly at Derhams House, Minchinhampton on 29 July 1976 at the age of sixty-seven.

Military intelligence, the RUC and victims named Cunningham as a paedophile and identified his close links to the sex offender ring at Kincora Boys' Home, but MI5 denies this.

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