{{Short description|British politician}} {{for|the English cricketers|Kenneth Carlisle (cricketer, born 1908)|Kenneth Carlisle (cricketer, born 1882)}} {{Use dmy dates|date=August 2016}} {{Use British English|date=August 2016}} {{Infobox officeholder |honorific_prefix = |name = Sir Kenneth Carlisle |honorific_suffix = Kt |image = |office = Lord Commissioner of the Treasury |prime_minister = Margaret Thatcher |term_start = 27 July 1988 |term_end = 22 July 1990 |predecessor = Michael Neubert |successor = Sydney Chapman |office1 = Member of Parliament<br />for Lincoln |term_start1 = 3 May 1979 |term_end1 = 8 April 1997 |predecessor1 = Margaret Jackson |successor1 = Gillian Merron |birth_name = Kenneth Melville Carlisle |birth_date = {{birth date and age|1941|3|25|df=yes}} |birth_place = Hiraethog Rural District |education = Harrow School |alma_mater = Magdalen College, Oxford |party = Conservative |spouse = Lady Carla Cooper Carlisle }} '''Sir Kenneth Melville Carlisle''' (born 25 March 1941) is a politician in the United Kingdom. He was the Conservative Member of Parliament for Lincoln from 1979 to 1997.
==Early life== Born in Hiraethog, Denbighshire, Wales, he is the son of Kenneth Ralph Malcolm Peter Carlisle and Elizabeth Mary McLaren. His father was a Director then Chairman of Liebig Extract of Meat Company which owned the brands of Oxo and Fray Bentos. The company was bought by Brooke Bond in 1970 and Unilever in 1984, and Kenneth Carlisle worked at the company for eight years from 1966 to 1974. He was educated at Harrow School and Magdalen College, Oxford, where he gained a BA in Law. He became a barrister at the Inner Temple in 1965. In 1974, he took over running of an arable farm on his father's {{convert|1100|acre|km2|adj=on}} Wyken estate near Stanton in Suffolk.
==Parliamentary career== Carlisle was elected as MP for Lincoln at the 1979 general election, becoming the first Conservative to win the seat in 50 years. ''The Almanac of British Politics'' noted that his win was helped by the presence of a candidate for the Democratic Labour Party, which drew votes away from the incumbent Labour MP Margaret Jackson.<ref name="Almancac6th502">{{cite book |last1=Waller |first1=Robert |last2=Criddle |first2=Byron |title=The Almanac of British Politics |date=1999 |publisher=Routledge |location=London |isbn=0-415-18541-6 |page=502 |edition=Sixth}}</ref> In the 1980s he substantially increased his majority, thanks in part to the addition of several middle-class suburbs to the north of Lincoln before the 1983 general election.<ref name="Almancac6th503">{{cite book |last1=Waller |first1=Robert |last2=Criddle |first2=Byron |title=The Almanac of British Politics |date=1999 |publisher=Routledge |location=London |isbn=0-415-18541-6 |page=503 |edition=Sixth}}</ref>
He was a Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Ministry of Defence from October 1990 - March 1992 and the Minister for Roads and Traffic at the Department of Transport from May 1992 - May 1993. He is on the Council of the Royal Horticultural Society.
He retired as an MP at the 1997 general election.<ref name="TimesGuide97p302">{{cite book |title=The Times Guide to the House of Commons 1997 |date=1997 |publisher=Times Books |location=London |isbn=0-7230-0956-2 |page=302}}</ref> His successor as Conservative candidate in Lincoln lost the seat to Labour's Gillian Merron by over 11,000 votes.<ref name="TimesGuide97p179">{{cite book |title=The Times Guide to the House of Commons 1997 |date=1997 |publisher=Times Books |location=London |isbn=0-7230-0956-2 |page=179}}</ref> New boundaries introduced for the election contributed to this defeat, as it was projected that had Lincoln been fought on these boundaries in 1992, it would have had a Labour majority of about 1,000 (whereas Carlisle had won by just over 2,000 votes on the old boundaries).<ref name="Almancac6th503"/>
==Farming== His farm has a {{convert|7|acre|m2|adj=on}} vineyard, shop and the Leaping Hare restaurant. The vineyard which has the Bacchus grape produces about 14,000 bottles of wine a year. He is interested in conservation via the Countryside Stewardship Scheme, notably that of the grey partridge.
==Personal life== He married Carla from Mississippi in 1986. They have a son, Sam. From 1996 to 1998 and 2000–12, his wife wrote the weekly Spectator column for Country Life magazine.<ref>Carla Carlisle in ''Country Life'', 14 November 2012</ref>
==Honours== * He was knighted in the 1994 Queen's Birthday Honours List "For political service".<ref>{{cite web |title=The London Gazette 10 June 1994 |url=https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/53696/supplement/2 |website=The London Gazette |access-date=10 September 2022 |language=en}}</ref> This allowed him to be called "Sir Kenneth Carlisle".
==References== <references />
==External links== * [http://www.wykenvineyards.co.uk Wyken Vineyards] * [http://www.stantonpreschool.co.uk Patron of Stanton Preschool] * {{Hansard-contribs | mr-kenneth-carlisle| Kenneth Carlisle }}
{{s-start}} {{s-par|uk}} {{succession box | title = Member of Parliament for Lincoln | years = 1979–1997 | before = Margaret Jackson | after = Gillian Merron }} {{s-end}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Carlisle, Kenneth}} Category:1941 births Category:Living people Category:People educated at Harrow School Category:Alumni of Magdalen College, Oxford Category:Conservative Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies Category:UK MPs 1983–1987 Category:UK MPs 1979–1983 Category:UK MPs 1987–1992 Category:UK MPs 1992–1997 Category:People from the Borough of St Edmundsbury Category:Politics of Lincoln, England Category:Knights Bachelor