David Liddell-Grainger

Scottish politician

David Ian Liddell Grainger (26 January 193012 March 2007) of Ayton Castle, in Berwickshire, was a prominent freemason who served as Grand Master Mason of the Grand Lodge of Scotland from 1969 until 1974. In 1955 he was created an Officer of St John of Jerusalem and in 1974 a Knight of St John of Jerusalem and served in the Royal Company of Archers between 1955 and 1983. He was a member of Berwickshire County Council from 1958 to 1973 and was a Deputy Lieutenant of Berwickshire between 1963 and 1985. Much of his family's wealth derived from his great great grandfather Richard Grainger (1797 1861) “visionary and builder” the creator of much of the present centre of the City of Newcastle, “the prime mover behind one of the most significant exercises in urban planning in the middle decades of the 19th century and a builder and speculator unparalleled in the region”. He married Anne Mary Sibylla Abel Smith, a second cousin of Queen Elizabeth II.

David Liddell Grainger was the son of Captain Henry Hubert Liddell Grainger (1886–1935), Scots Guards, JP, DL, of Ayton Castle, by his wife Lady Muriel Felicia Vere Bertie, daughter and only child and heiress of Montague Bertie, 12th Earl of Lindsey, who married secondly, in 1938, Sir Malcolm Barclay Harvey, a soldier, Member of Parliament, Governor of South Australia from 1939 to 1944, Prior for Scotland of the Order of St John from 1964, and a prominent freemason who served as Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of South Australia, 1941–44 and later as Grand Master Mason of the Grand Lodge of Scotland 1949–1953. In 1924 Barclay Harvey had inherited from his father Dinnet House in Aberdeenshire, with its estate. David Liddell Grainger's father died in 1935 when he was aged 5, and his mother remarried three years later in 1938 to Sir Malcolm Barclay Harvey, Governor of South Australia from 1939 to 1944, and a prominent Freemason who served as Grand Master of South Australia, (1941 – 44) and later as Grand Master Mason of the Grand Lodge of Scotland 1949–1953. David thus accompanied his step father to Australia, where he attended St Peter's College, Adelaide. He then continued his education in England, where he attended Eton College and later the University of London.

Liddell Grainger conducted an affair in the 1970s, which was public knowledge, with Lady de la Rue (née Christine Schellin), the young wife of his elderly near neighbour Sir Eric de la Rue, 3rd Baronet (1906–1989). As a result, Liddell Grainger and his first wife, Anne Abel Smith, were divorced in 1981. Christine de la Rue then moved into the Liddell Grainger family home, Ayton Castle, and bore Liddell Grainger two children, (David) Henry Liddell Grainger (born 31 January 1983) and Maximilian Liddell Grainger (born 1985; died 1998). He later married Christine on 18 October 1996. Despite this, when Christine's first husband, Sir Eric de la Rue, became terminally ill, he was moved into Ayton Castle, where he stayed until his death.

When Liddell Grainger died in 2007, Ayton Castle and its estate was left to the surviving son of his second marriage, not to the children of his first marriage. In July 2015 the Castle was sold although elements of the estate have been retained by the Liddell Grainger family.