LORD Tweedsmuir, the son of John Buchan, the author and former Governor General of Canada, has died at the age of 84.

His first wife, Lady Tweedsmuir, was the Conservative MP for South Aberdeen for 20 years and was appointed as Under-Secretary of State at the Scottish Office in 1962 - making her only the second woman to achieve such recognition.

However, Lord Tweedsmuir - also named John Buchan after his father, the first Baron of Tweedsmuir - had a distinguished military career and held a number of public offices in his own right.

His daughter, Priscilla Susan, is the wife of the Scottish Office Minister of State Lord James Douglas-Hamilton.

An extensive traveller, he was tipped to become Governor-General of New Zealand in 1952 but is thought to have put his wife's political career ahead of his own prospects.

He was wounded in Sicily during the Second World War, was twice mentioned in despatches and later decorated with the Order of the British Empire. Before the war, he was an Assistant District Officer of the Colonial Service in Uganda and also served in the Hudson's Bay Company.

At the age of 38 he became one of the youngest Rectors of Aberdeen University.

A committed supporter of the Commonwealth, he went on to hold a number of posts, including President of the Federation of Commonwealth and British Empire Chambers of Commerce.

He was a member of the board of BOAC from 1955 to 1964, chairman of the Advertising Standards Authority from 1971 to 1974, and chairman of the Council on Tribunals from 1973 to 1980.

Lord Tweedsmuir was made a Commander of the British Empire in the Civil List in 1964.

His first wife, the Rt Hon Priscilla Jean Fortescue died in 1978 after a long illness. They had a daughter. Lady Tweedsmuir also had two daughters by her first marriage to Major Sir Arthur Lindsay Grant, who died in action in 1944.

In 1980, Lord Tweedsmuir married Jean Margherita Grant, the widow of the late Captain Sir Francis Cullen Grant.