Grace Halcrow

Grace Muriel Thomson Halcrow (b. 1 June 1916, Glasgow, d. 19 January 1999, Lerwick), was a teacher in Cunningsburgh, a County Councillor for the same area between 1955 and 1961, and a Lerwick Town Councillor from 1957 till the late 1960s. Although standing as an independent candidate in these elections, Halcrow was a stalwart of the Conservative cause in Shetland.

She unsuccessfully contested the 1967 Lerwick Town Council election.

Biography

Grace was born in Glasgow after her parents had moved there 5 months prior. At the age of one, she was afflicted by polio which caused a lifelong disability. Despite her tough start, she was an accomplished student, at one point placing in the top 30 in a West of Scotland bursary competition, later emerging from Glasgow University with a First Class degree in Classics. She wanted to be a teacher by 1939, but found that barriers were put up by others due to her disability. She arrived back in Shetland in February 1942, helping to organise the call-up of women during WWII.

She was 29 at the end of the war, she hoped to join the Civil Service but was denied by her age. She travelled to London after passing the appropriate examinations, only to be told by officials that she would not be able to do the work that Grace herself believed she had been doing for years anyway. She didn't get to join the civil service, and instead got a job with the Zetland County Council in the motor taxation department. A staunch trade unionist, Grace commissioned the National and Local Government Officers' Association to fight a grading appeal for her, a battle she only half won and subsequently resigned, spending her remaining career knitting for local merchants.

She had an interest in politics from a young age, making her first speak in Glasgow aged 13 against a Scottish nationalist. She joined the Conservative party in 1950, and acted as sub-agent for countless prospective Conservative candidates.

Shetland and Norway

Upon the discovery of the charter in which King Christian 1 of Denmark, Sweden and Norway pledged Shetland in 1469 for 8000 Rhenish florins to James III of Scotland, Grace said "I hope that Britain will wake up to the fact that if Norway chooses to exert her undoubted rights it would be fantastically easy for her to take Shetland back". At a meeting of the Orkney and Zetland Association, Grace described Shetland as "the illegitimate foundling of the United Kingdom, knowing that we had rights, but unable to produce the one vital document which was the foundation on which our rights depended."

Grace lamented that had the document been discovered before the unearthing of the St. Ninian's Treasure, a legal challenge may have prevented the treasure from leaving Shetland. (Glasgow Herald, Mar 11 1968).

Resignation of Norman Lamont

In the 1990's, Grace was the honorary president of the Shetland Conservative Association. When Shetland-born Norman Lamont resigned from Conservative Government in 1993, she said:

"I am rather sorry as he has had a very, very difficult time of it. Nobody could be popular in that job. He had to do things which people didn't like, like the heating tax. Having a Shetland Chancellor was really a very nice thing."

Political Career

Lerwick Town Council

• Lerwick Town Council Election May 1954
• Lerwick Town Council Election May 1964
• Lerwick Town Council By-Election May 1967
• Lerwick Town Council Election May 1968

Zetland County Council

• 1955 County Council election
• 1958 County Council election

External Links

• Bayanne genealogy page

Zetland County Council
Preceded by Adam Halcrow	Member for Cunningsburgh 1955-1961	Succeeded by Joan McLeod