Sir John Gilmour was a Scottish landowner and farmer who was Conservative MP for East Fife for 18 years. That he was able to win and retain the long-time Liberal seat was testament to his broad local popularity and quiet dedication. He had only reluctantly agreed to stand for Parliament and had neither the ambition nor the political hard nose to achieve government office but spent much of his energy furthering agricultural interests in his constituency and farther afield.

He was highly influential in a host of national and international organisations, and his kindly, efficient manner led to appointments as Lord-Lieutenant for Fife, Lord High Commissioner to the General Assemblies of the Church of Scotland and Captain in the Royal Company of Archers, the Queen’s ceremonial bodyguard in Scotland.

John Edward Gilmour was born in 1912, the only son of Sir John Gilmour, 2nd Bt, a decorated veteran of the Boer War and First World War who became the first Secretary of State for Scotland in 180 years when the role was restored to Cabinet level.

Gilmour was educated at Eton, where he was captain of boats and a friend of Jo Grimond, the future Liberal leader who also came from East Fife, and Trinity Hall, Cambridge, where he read politics and economics. He was an accomplished oarsman and was part of the victorious 1933 Boat Race crew and also won the Silver Goblet at the Henley Royal Regatta the same year.

He completed his education at the Dundee School of Economics, worked for Calders Brewery and joined the 2nd Fife and Forfar Yeomanry. He inherited the baronetcy in 1940 when his father died five months after being appointed Minister of Shipping.

During the war Gilmour received the DSO in recognition of his gallant leadership of his squadron during Operation Goodwood, the start of Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery’s breakout from the Normandy beachhead, east of Caen, in July 1944. Gilmour’s squadron was the left of four of the 11th Armoured Division’s advance towards the Bourguebus ridge, until half his tanks were knocked out by enemy flanking fire. He was later wounded near Belsen and invalided home.

After the war Gilmour concentrated on the family property near Leven on the Firth of Forth, including the home Mon-rave, which had been used as a military hospital, and the 1,400 acres of traditional mixed farming land that his grandfather had acquired in 1860s. Much of the land had been let out during the war, and he spent several years getting back possession.

He was an enthusiastic huntsman for most of his life and helped to revive the Fife Hunt after the war, serving as joint master from 1953 to 1972.

He stood unsuccessfully for Parliament at East Stirling & Clackmannanshire in the 1945 general election but was more at home with local politics and in 1955 was elected to Fife County Council, on which he sat until 1961, latterly as leader of the Independent group.

In September that year Sir James Henderson-Stewart, the long-serving National Liberal and Conservative MP for East Fife, died and Gilmour was urged to stand in the subsequent by-election, largely to prevent the imposition of a locally unpopular Tory candidate. By now the long years of “hyphen politics”, of alliances between the Conservatives and rebel Liberals, was almost over, and Gilmour, who was not an enthusiastic public speaker, faced the twin obstacles of protest votes against an unpopular Conservative government and a mainstream Liberal candidate, which his predecessor had not faced.

Gilmour won by a healthy, ableit reduced, majority with the Liberals in third place despite their well-organised campaign. In second place was a fiery 23-year-old student, John Smith, the future Labour leader. In the 1964 general election Gilmour increased his lead over Labour to five figures and maintained this over the next ten years. However, in the two general elections held in 1974, the SNP replaced Labour as runner-up and the October poll reduced Gilmour’s majority to less than 3,000.

He had initially enjoyed the clubby atmosphere of Parliament, with friends in the Labour and Liberal parties, but its increasingly cutthroat nature did not suit him and he decided not to stand at the 1979 general election.

He was chairman of the Scottish Conservatives from 1965 to 1967 and took a leading role in the successful Fight for Fife campaign which prevented the county from being split into three in a local government reorganisation.

His successor kept East Fife for the Tories but in 1987 the constituency that was held for 30 years by the Liberal Prime Minister Herbert Asquith 100 years previously, was taken by the future Liberal Democrat leader, Menzies Campbell.

While in Parliament Gilmour had been heavily involved in a number of farming interests and various companies – as chairman of the Royal Agricultural Society of the Commonwealth and director of the Australian Pastoral Company, making many visits to that country. He had also been chairman of the Animal Diseases Research Association in the 1970s.

He was Lord-Lieutenant for Fife from 1980 to 1987 and, after many years as a member of the Kirk Session of his local parish church in Largo, was made Lord High Commissioner to the General Assemblies of the Church of Scotland in 1982 and 1983. This post involves representing the Queen at various events, especially the week of the general assembly, staying and entertaining in the Palace of Holyroodhouse.

Gilmour was reticent but quietly determined and made a formidable team with his lively wife, Ursula, whom he married in 1941. She died in 2004 and Gilmour is survived by their two sons.

The elder son, John, inherits the baronetcy.

Sir John Gilmour, DSO, 3rd baronet, landowner and politician, was born on October 24, 1912. He died on June 1, 2007, aged 94