Here’s a question to start off the New Year. I like to think that it is Google-proof, but no doubt I shall soon be proved wrong! The answer can be gleaned, though, by a bit of careful research.
Here are the clues:
1. I sit in the House of Lords.
2. I am unusual in that I have had a full introduction to the House on two occasions.
3. My vocation means that I have been fairly peripatetic.
4. I was first introduced into the House of Lords in 1997.
Who am I?
I’m stuck! I had two ideas. From clue 2, I reckoned it could be a hereditary who was excluded from the House in 1999, but later returned as a life peer, e.g. the Earl of Mar and Kellie. However, I can’t find any who first entered the House as late as 1997.
Then from 3, I wondered if it could be a bishop later made a life peer. I’m not sure if bishops are “introduced” or not. The only ones I could think of are Lords Carey and Harries of Pentregarth, but both entered the Lords long before 1997.
I’ll keep thinking!
Jonathan – I’ve been thinking along the same lines. Another of the bishops who returned after retirement is Baron Hope of Thornes, but again he doesn’t quite fit the bill.
Baron Sheppard of Liverpool is almost a perfect fit, as a former international cricketer, but his introduction in 1997 was his second.
The 1998 report of the Lords Committee on the Ceremony of Introduction says:
2. Ceremonial introduction to the House of Lords is currently necessary in the case of: …
(6) a bishop on first receiving a writ of summons or, if already a member of the House, on translation to another see.
So a bishop either moving diocese or retiring and later becoming a life peer would definitely count under the criteria.
I think the answer is the Rt Rev the Lord Bishop of Manchester, Nigel McCulloch. He first entered the House of Lords in 1997 when he was appointed Lord High Almoner to The Queen while Diocesan Bishop of Wakefield. As Matt points out above, a Bishop must be introduced again when moving to a different post, which must be what Lord Norton is hinting at with clue 3.
I realised my first thought, about it being a hereditary peer, was wrong as they are not introduced when succeeding to a title. The only surviving hereditary who was introduced twice is the Earl of Snowdon, and obviously he first entered the Lords in the ’60s!
Jonathan: Well done. It is indeed the Rt Rev Nigel McCulloch, the Bishop of Manchester. He served in various dioceses (Norwich, Salisbury, Wells, Taunton) before becoming Bishop of Wakefield in 1992 and entering the House of Lords in 1997. In 2002 he was translated to the see of Manchester and so had to be introduced again. As you discovered, hereditary peers returning as life peers (or as elected hereditaries) take the oath but do not have a ceremonial introduction. The number of members of the House in a position to have two ceremonial introductions is thus extremely limited.
The Lord Bishop of Manchester is someone who is seen on television each year at the ceremony of remembrance at the Royal Albert Hall in his capacity as National Chaplain to the Royal British Legion.
Lord Norton,
Do you know if a promotion in the peerage requires a new introduction? While now relatively obsolete, would a man created a baron and later promoted to say, an earl, go through the ceremonial again?