Jack Andrews

Sir Jack Andrews
Deputy Prime Minister of
Northern Ireland
In office
3 May 1969 – 30 March 1972
Minister in the Senate of the
Government of Northern Ireland
In office
7 August 1964 – 30 March 1972
Member of the
Senate of Northern Ireland
In office
1964–1972
Member of the Northern Ireland Parliament
for Mid Down
In office
1953–1964
Preceded byJ. M. Andrews
Succeeded byBasil Kelly
Personal details
Born15 July 1903
Died12 January 1986
Political partyUlster Unionist Party
Parent

Sir John Lawson Ormrod Andrews KBE DL PC (Ire) (15 July 1903 – 12 January 1986) was a member of both the Northern Ireland House of Commons and the Senate of Northern Ireland.

Son of Prime Minister J. M. Andrews, he was educated at Moure Grange Preparatory School, County Down, and Shrewsbury School. Andrews entered Parliament as MP for Mid Down in 1953 (replacing his father), a seat which he represented until his resignation in 1964, when he was elected to the Senate where he sat until the Parliament was prorogued in 1972. His election to the senate was following a cabinet reshuffle, in which Andrews accepted demotion to the politically unimportant position of Government Minister in the Senate.

He held several Cabinet positions, including Minister in the Senate from 1964 and Deputy Prime Minister from May 1969. He was a contender for the position of Prime Minister on the retirement of Lord Brookeborough, but when it became clear that Terence O'Neill had a comfortable lead over both Andrews and Brian Faulkner in the parliamentary party, no contest was held. In 1969 he was approached by O'Neill to succeed him, but he refused and James Chichester-Clark was elected

During the 1970 Bannside and South Antrim by-elections, Andrews was at the centre of the UUP's pluralist campaign against Ian Paisley's Protestant Unionist Party, declaring "What does Protestant Unionism mean? Does it mean that you have to put a sign over the door of the Unionist Party saying Protestants only?"

Andrews was knighted in 1973. In retirement, he served as President of the Unionist Party of Northern Ireland.[1]

References

[edit]
  • Ireland since 1939, Henry Patterson (2001, Oxford University Press)
  • A history of the Ulster Unionist Party, Graham Walker (2004, Manchester University Press)
  • Memoirs of a statesman, Brian Faulkner (1978, Weidenfeld and Nicolson)
Parliament of Northern Ireland
Preceded by Member of Parliament for Mid Down
1953–1964
Succeeded by
Political offices
Preceded by Minister of Health and Local Government
1957–1961
Succeeded by
Preceded by Minister of Commerce and Production
1961–1963
Succeeded by
Preceded by Minister of Finance
1963–1964
Succeeded by
New office Deputy Prime Minister of Northern Ireland
1969–1972
Office dissolved