Canon Kenyon Wright
Clergyman who became the public face of devolution
CANON KENYON WRIGHT, who has died aged 84, chaired the Constitutional Convention which paved the way for the creation of Scotland’s devolved Parliament. Decent and non-tribal, he became the public face of devolution as the Convention produced a watertight scheme.
When Wright, then general secretary of the Scottish Council of Churches, was chosen to chair the Convention in 1989, devolution seemed out of reach.
Wright, active in the Campaign for a Scottish Assembly, persuaded churches, council and trade union leaders – plus key Labour figures and Liberal Democrats – that by working together they could achieve change.
Malcolm Rifkind, Mrs Thatcher’s Scottish Secretary, remarked that “if the disparate parties reached a common conclusion, he would jump off the roof of the Scottish Office.” But on St Andrew’s Day 1990, the Convention recommended a legislature elected by PR and financed by assigned revenues from taxes raised in Scotland.
Before the 1992 election, hopes were high that Labour would win and implement the plan. Labour paraded its Scottish big guns at Edinburgh’s Old High School, earmarked as the assembly’s meeting place; Robin Cook was tipped to lead it. But a late swing to John Major’s Conservatives dashed these hopes – with worries about devolution ironically a factor.
The Convention went back to work, fleshed out its plan and in November 1995 published a “Claim of Right”. Echoing the original Claim of Right accepting William and Mary as Scotland’s monarchs, it acknowledged “the sovereign right of the Scottish people to determine the form of Government best suited to their needs”.
When Labour came to power in 1997, the Convention’s plan formed the basis for Tony Blair’s devolution package. Put to a referendum in which Wright was a prominent campaigner, it was piloted through the Commons by Donald Dewar, who became First Minister after elections in 1999. Before the Holyrood Parliament opened, Wright formally handed Dewar the Claim of Right.
Kenyon Wright was born in Paisley on August 31 1932. When he was small his father was sent to Poland as chief chemist for J&P Coats in eastern Europe. As the Nazi threat grew, Kenyon’s mother brought him home; he suspected his father stayed on for British Intelligence.
He attended Paisley Grammar School, in 1945 becoming a “committed Christian and a convinced socialist”, the latter after contesting a mock election.
At Glasgow University he chaired the Labour Club, but was more committed to Methodism, going on to Cambridge to train for the ministry. Ordained in 1955, he became a missionary in Bombay.
Back in Glasgow in 1961 to take his Master’s in Theology, he joined an antiPolaris protest. From 1963 he headed the Ecumenical, Social and Industrial Institute at Durgapur.
The merger of India’s Methodist and Anglican churches made Wright acceptable to both. He returned to Britain in 1970 as director of urban ministry at Coventry Cathedral, and from 1974 canon residentiary. In 1981 he became general secretary of the Scottish Council of Churches.
Having eschewed party politics during the Convention, Wright in 2001 contested Banff and Buchan for the Liberal Democrats after Alex Salmond stood down from Holyrood. In 2003 he fought Stirling.
Wright retired to England. Prior to the 2014 independence referendum he told David Cameron he “hadn’t a clue” what the people of Scotland wanted. Eventually Wright came out for independence.
He was appointed CBE in 1999.
Kenyon Wright married Betty Robinson in 1955. She survives him, with their three daughters. Kenyon Wright, born August 31 1932, died January 11 2017