Peter Smithers

Sir Peter Henry Berry Otway Smithers {{post-nominals|country=GBR|VRD}} (9 December 1913 – 8 June 2006) was a United Kingdom Conservative Party politician. He was Member of Parliament for Winchester for 14 years, and a junior Minister in the early 1960s. He also served as Secretary General of the Council of Europe from 1964 to 1969.

Life

He was educated at Hawtreys, Harrow School and Magdalen College, Oxford. He received a First Class Honours Degree in modern history. He was called to the bar from the Inner Temple in 1936.{{cite web|title=Smithers, Sir Peter (Henry Berry Otway), (9 Dec. 1913–8 June 2006), Lt-Comdr RNR, retired|url=https://www.ukwhoswho.com/view/10.1093/ww/9780199540891.001.0001/ww-9780199540884-e-35537|access-date=13 June 2021|website=WHO'S WHO & WHO WAS WHO|year=2007 |doi=10.1093/ww/9780199540884.013.u35537|isbn=978-0-19-954089-1 }}

Smithers became an officer in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve in 1937 and by 1958 he retired as a lieutenant commander.{{cite news|last=8 June 2006|first=9 December 1913-|title=Sir Peter Smithers|work=The Times|url=https://www.thetimes.com/world/us-world/article/sir-peter-smithers-ks3gbsn9gfj|access-date=13 June 2021|issn=0140-0460}} During the Second World War he was associated with intelligence work, being a friend and colleague of Ian Fleming, who arranged for Smithers' diplomatic career. Smithers' Financial Times obituary suggests he was the model for Fleming's most famous character, Commander James Bond.{{Cite web|title=Sir Peter Smithers, model for 007, dies at 92|url=https://www.ft.com/content/d59c413e-fbd6-11da-b1a1-0000779e2340 |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/C8Qil |archive-date=11 December 2022 |url-access=subscription|access-date=13 June 2021|website=Financial Times}} Other possibilities are discussed in Inspirations for James Bond.

He received a number of diplomatic postings, being Assistant Naval Attaché at Washington, D.C., and Acting Naval Attaché at Mexico City (also covering part of Central America).

Smithers served as a councillor on Winchester Rural District Council (later amalgamated into Winchester City Council) 1946–50. He was elected as MP for Winchester at the 1950 general election and sat until he resigned in January 1964 on his appointment to the Council of Europe post. He had previously been a British delegate to the council. He was Parliamentary Private Secretary to a number of Ministers before becoming Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Foreign Office 1962–1964.{{Cite journal |last=Armitage |first=James |date=2025 |title=Daphne bholua 'Peter Smithers' |journal=The Garden |volume=150 |issue=3 |pages=48}}

Smithers was knighted in the 1970 New Year Honours.{{London Gazette |issue=44999 |supp=y |date=30 December 1969 |page=2}}

Smithers was enthusiastic about plants from childhood. By the end of his life, he recorded that he had tried to grow over 32,000 species. He created gardens in houses where he lived in Winchester (England), Cuernavaca (Mexico), Strasbourg (France) and Vico Morcote (Switzerland). He introduced several plant varieties to horticulture duch as Lilium 'Vico Queen', Magnolia x wieseneri 'William Watson', Nerine 'Dreams' and Paeonia 'Dojean'

He was part of a plant collecting trip to Nepal in 1970 that brought back seedlings of Daphne bholua. A distinctive variety raised from seeds of these plants was later named D. bholua 'Peter Smithers '. He was awarded the Veitch Memorial Medal in 1993 and the Schulthess Garden prize in 2001 for his plant and horticultural activities.{{Cite journal |last=Armitage |first=James |date=2025 |title=Daphne bholua 'Peter Smithers' |journal=The Garden |volume=150 |issue=3 |pages=48}}

At the end of his life, he was a Swiss citizen. He died on 8 June 2006 in Vico Morcote, Ticino, Switzerland, at the age of 92.{{Cite web|date=10 June 2006|title=Sir Peter Smithers|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1520841/Sir-Peter-Smithers.html|access-date=13 June 2021|website=The Daily Telegraph}}

Publications

As well as writing needed for his professional career, Smithers wrote several books for the general public. These included:

Adventures of a Gardener (1995) The Harvill Press pp 211 ISBN 978-1860460593

References

Who's Who of British Members of Parliament: Volume IV 1945-1979, edited by M. Stenton and S. Lees (The Harvester Press 1981)

External links

{{Hansard-contribs | lieut-commander-peter-smithers | Peter Smithers }}
[https://web.archive.org/web/20080319025609/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?view=DETAILS&grid=&xml=/news/2006/06/10/db1001.xml Daily Telegraph obituary]
[http://news.ft.com/cms/s/d59c413e-fbd6-11da-b1a1-0000779e2340.html Financial Times obituary]
[https://web.archive.org/web/20060725051207/http://www.vicogarden.com/ Official Homepage]

{{succession box

| title = Member of Parliament for Winchester

| years = 1950–1964

| before = George Jeger

| after = Morgan Morgan-Giles

}}

{{succession box

| title = Secretary General of the Council of Europe

| years = 16 March 1964 – 15 September 1969

| before = {{interlanguage link|Lodovico Benvenuti|it}}

| after = Lujo Toncic-Sorinj

}}