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Peter Kerr, 12th Marquess of Lothian

British politician (1922-2004)

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
People and ideasInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 27, 2026
Entity authorityQ7175172 ↗
Source-derived summary

Peter Francis Walter Kerr, 12th Marquess of Lothian, (8 September 1922 – 11 October 2004) was a British peer, politician and landowner. He was the son of Captain Andrew William Kerr by his wife, Marie Kerr. Both of his parents were male-line descendants of William Kerr, 5th Marquess of Lothian.

Life and career

His father, Andrew Kerr, and grandfather, Lord Walter Kerr, the son of the 7th Marquess of Lothian, were officers in the Royal Navy. He was educated at Ampleforth College and Christ Church, Oxford, and joined the Scots Guards. He succeeded his cousin, Philip Kerr, 11th Marquess of Lothian, in 1940, and married a distant cousin, Antonella Newland (d. 2007), daughter of Major General Sir Foster Newland, on 30 April 1943. Lord and Lady Lothian had six children: two sons and four daughters. His wife pursued her own career as a journalist, and founded the Women of the Year Lunch. The family were mainly based at their estates in the Borders, at Newbattle Abbey and Monteviot.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Peter Kerr, 12th Marquess of Lothian” is british politician (1922-2004). The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Peter, Kerr and 12th, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA useful biographical orientation record, particularly for establishing names, roles and a first chronology. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1922, 2004, 1940, 2007—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1922-09-08. For this dossier, Peter, Kerr and 12th is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “british politician (1922-2004)” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 27, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7175172. VIAF identifies the subject as 254006077. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1922, 2004, 1940 and 2007.

Critical limits

Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Peter Kerr, 12th Marquess of Lothian”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Peter Kerr, 12th Marquess of Lothian primary sources, Peter Kerr, 12th Marquess of Lothian archive and Peter research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Peter Kerr, 12th Marquess of Lothian”?
  2. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
  3. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
Subject index

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Peter Kerr, 12th Marquess of Lothian” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.