Robert Carr

Leonard Robert Carr, Baron Carr of Hadley, (11 November 1916 – 17 February 2012) was a British Conservative Party politician who served as Home Secretary from 1972 to 1974. He served as a Member of Parliament (MP) for 26 years, and later served in the House of Lords as a life peer.

Background Leonard Robert Carr was born in North Finchley on 11 November 1916. He was educated at Westminster School and Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, where he read Natural Sciences, graduating in 1938. After graduation he applied his knowledge of metallurgy at John Dale & Co, the family metal engineering firm. More than thirty years later, a member of the group issued a public apology to Carr and sent him a Christmas card.

In 1972, Carr served a brief period as Lord President of the Council and then was appointed Home Secretary following Reginald Maudling's resignation. Following Heath's defeat in the first ballot of the 1975 Conservative leadership contest, he asked Carr to "take over the functions of leader" until a new leader was elected. The day after her election the new leader, Margaret Thatcher met with Carr, according to her at his request, before she formed the shadow cabinet. According to her memoirs, Carr had been close to Heath and so she would have understood "if he did not relish the prospect of serving under" her. She stated that Carr made it clear that the only post that he would accept would be that of Shadow Foreign Secretary. She told him that she could not promise that and confided in her memoirs that at that stage, she was still considering appointments and was "not convinced" that she would offer Carr any role in the shadow cabinet. She proceeded to appoint Maudling as Shadow Foreign Secretary and saw Carr again later to inform him of her decision. In her memoirs, she speculated that Carr might have been "persuaded to stay in another capacity" but did not offer him the chance and stated, "I was not keen to have another strong opponent in any position on the team".

In 1975, Carr co-founded the Tory Reform Group. He served on the board for a number of companies, including Cadbury Schweppes, Prudential Assurance (which he chaired from 1980 to 1985), and Securicor.