1. Sir John William Frederic Nott was a British politician who served as Secretary of State for Defence from 1981 to 1983.
21 Facts About John Nott
1. 2.
John Nott was born in Bromley, south-east London, to Richard John Nott, a rice broker from a military family, and Phyllis Francis, and was educated at Bradfield College.
3.
John Nott was called to the bar at the Inner Temple in 1959.
4.
In 1966 John Nott was elected as a National Liberal and Conservative MP for the Cornwall constituency of St Ives, the last person elected under the National Liberal label.
5.
The party was formally absorbed into the Conservatives in 1968, after which John Nott sat as a Conservative MP.
6.
John Nott was the last surviving former National Liberal MP.
7.
John Nott served in the government of Edward Heath as Minister of State at the Treasury.
8.
John Nott was made Secretary of State for Trade after Margaret Thatcher won the 1979 general election and became a privy councillor.
9.
John Nott switched the resultant savings to nuclear submarines, naval weapon systems and air defence.
10.
John Nott famously walked out of an interview with Robin Day during the 1982 Conservative Party conference after Day referred to him as a "here today, gone tomorrow politician", although he retained a sense of humour about the incident, later naming his memoir Here Today, Gone Tomorrow.
11.
John Nott closed Chatham Dockyard and ended the mid-life modernisation of old frigates.
12.
John Nott took through Parliament the upgrading of the nuclear deterrent to the current Trident system.
13.
John Nott offered his resignation to Thatcher following the Argentine invasion of the Falklands in 1982.
14.
John Nott was eventually replaced in January 1983 by Michael Heseltine after he decided not to seek re-election at the 1983 general election.
15.
From 1985 to 1989 John Nott was chairman and chief executive of Lazard Brothers.
16.
John Nott served as chairman of Hillsdown Holdings, a multinational food company, and of the Canadian firm Maple Leaf Foods, and was deputy of Royal Insurance.
17.
John Nott published his autobiography, Here Today, Gone Tomorrow, in 2002.
18.
In 1959 John Nott married Miloska Sekol, whom he met at the University of Cambridge.
19.
John Nott spent much of his retirement restoring his 200-acre farm in Cornwall.
20.
John Nott died on 6 November 2024, at the age of 92.
21.
John Nott was portrayed by Clive Merrison in the 2002 BBC production of Ian Curteis's controversial The Falklands Play, and by Angus Wright in the film The Iron Lady.