Sir Fitzroy Maclean, 1st Baronet

Sir Fitzroy Maclean
Member of Parliament
for Bute and Northern Ayrshire
In office
8 October 1959 – 8 February 1974
Preceded byCharles McAndrew
Succeeded byJohn Corrie
Member of Parliament
for Lancaster
In office
1941–1959
Preceded byHerwald Ramsbotham
Succeeded byHumphry Berkeley
Personal details
Born
Fitzroy Hew Royle Maclean

(1911-03-11)11 March 1911
Cairo, Khedivate of Egypt
Died15 June 1996(1996-06-15) (aged 85)
Hertford, England
NationalityBritish
Political partyConservative
Other political
affiliations
Unionist
Spouse
(m. 1946)
Children2
EducationEton College
Alma materKing's College, Cambridge
Occupation
  • Soldier
  • writer
  • politician
Military service
AllegianceUnited Kingdom
Branch/serviceBritish Army
RankBrigadier
Battles/wars
AwardsCommander of the Order of the British Empire
Order of Kutuzov (Soviet Union)
Croix de Guerre (France)
Order of the Partisan Star (Yugoslavia)

Sir Fitzroy Hew Royle Maclean, 1st Baronet (11 March 1911 – 15 June 1996) was a British Army officer, writer and politician. He was a Unionist Member of Parliament (MP) from 1941 to 1974 and was one of only two men who during the Second World War enlisted in the British Army as a private and rose to the rank of brigadier, the other being future fellow Conservative MP Enoch Powell.

Maclean wrote several books, including Eastern Approaches, in which he recounted three extraordinary series of adventures: travelling, often incognito, in Soviet Central Asia; fighting in the Western Desert campaign, where he specialised in commando raids behind enemy lines; and living rough with Josip Broz Tito and his Yugoslav Partisans while commanding the Maclean Mission there. It has been widely speculated that Ian Fleming used Maclean as one of his inspirations for James Bond.[2]

  1. ^ Adrian O′Sullivan (2015). Espionage and Counterintelligence in Occupied Persia (Iran): The Success of the Allied Secret Services, 1941–45. Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 120–131. ISBN 978-1-137-55556-4.
  2. ^ "Sir Fitzroy '007' Maclean's James Bond books sell for £26,000 – Lyon & Turnbull". Lyonandturnbull.com. 3 September 2008. Archived from the original on 7 October 2010. Retrieved 8 February 2010.