David Carnegie, 14th Earl of Northesk


David John MacRae Carnegie, 14th Earl of Northesk, styled Lord Rosehill between 1975 and 1994, was a British hereditary peer, landowner and member of the House of Lords.

Background

David Carnegie was the second son of Robert Carnegie, 13th Earl of Northesk, and Jean Margaret MacRae.

Political career

Lord Northesk inherited the earldom on his father's death in 1994, his elder brother having been accidentally drowned in infancy.
He thereby became a member of the House of Lords, where he sat on the Conservative benches. He was later one of the 92 peers elected to remain in the House following the passing of the House of Lords Act 1999. In the House of Lords, he spoke on topics relating to civil liberties and privacy, and spoke out against the Identity Cards Act 2006 and new online copyright laws such as those contained in the Digital Economy Act 2010.

Family

Lord Northesk married Jacqueline Dundas Reid in 1979. They had four children:
In 2001, his eldest child and only son Lord Rosehill, a psychiatric patient, shot himself in the head with his father's gun whilst on leave from hospital at the family's farm in West Sussex. He was 20 years old.
Northesk died at the age of 55 from cancer and was succeeded in the earldom by his eighth cousin once removed, Patrick Carnegy. His vacated seat in the House of Lords triggered a by-election for a Conservative hereditary peer to replace him.