Ian David Patrick Macpherson, 3rd Baron Strathcarron (born 31 March 1949), is a British hereditary peer and member of House of Lords. He is also the baronet Sir Ian David Patrick Macpherson of Drumalban.[1] He inherited the titles on the death of his father David Macpherson, 2nd Baron Strathcarron, on 31 August 2006.[2]
Lord Strathcarron married the former Gillian Rosamund Allison (born 15 September 1946) in 1974 and they have two children, the Honourable Sophie Ananda Macpherson (born 14 April 1978) and the Honourable Rory David Alisdair Macpherson (born: 15 April 1982).[3]
Lord Strathcarron spent ten years in the Orient working for Time-Life as a freelance journalist and copywriter. In 1970, he founded the Japan Europa Press Agency in Tokyo and sold it in 1995.[citation needed]
He became a partner in Strathcarron & Company[4] in 1974, and a founder and Director of Global Alliance Automotive Ltd, a transnational version of Strathcarron & Company in 1993.[5] In 1995, he founded Strathcarron Sports Cars plc,[6] manufacturers of sports/racing cars and since 2006 he has been a trustee and director of the National Motor Museum in Beaulieu, Hampshire.[7]
He is chairman and commissioning editor of Unicorn Publishing House Ltd,[8] a visual arts, cultural history and digital publishing and media distribution company. In 2018, he founded the transmedia production company Affable Media Ltd.[9]
In February 2022, he was elected to replace Viscount Ridley in the House of Lords following Ridley's retirement in December 2021.[10] He took the oath on 21 February 2022.
Lord Strathcarron is a student of Advaita Vedanta and has written of his experiences in non-duality in the books Living with Life[11] and Mysticism and Bliss.[12] He is also the author of two spy thriller novels for Troubador: Invisibility, and Black Beach.[13]
In 2009, he recreated Lord Byron's 1809–1811 Grand Tour of the Mediterranean for the book Joy Unconfined! Lord Byron's Grand Tour Re-Toured published by Signal Books,[14] an imprint of Christopher Hurst.
In 2010, he completed the first part of a Mark Twain travel trilogy based on Twain's 1867 tour of the Holy Land, resulting in the book Innocence & War: Mark Twain's Holy Land Revisited published in 2012 in the US by Dover Publications and in the UK by Signal Books. The second part of the trilogy, recreating Mark Twain's 1896 lecture tour of India for the book The Indian Equator; Mark Twain's India Revisited published in 2014 in the US by Dover Publications[15] and in the UK by Signal Books.[16] The final part of the trilogy, Heart of Lightness, Mark Twain's Mississippi Revisited, will be about Mark Twain's final steamboat journey up the Mississippi River from New Orleans to Hannibal, Missouri and his subsequent short career in the American Civil War.
In 2016, Unicorn Press published his biography of Sir Francis Chichester, Never Fear: Reliving the Life of Sir Francis Chichester.[17]
In 2017, Unicorn Press published his art book about the painter Sophie Walbeoffe, Painting with Both Hands.[18]
In 2018, Affable Media published his fictional biography, Crikey! How Did That Happen? The Refreshingly Unauthorised Biography of Sir Bertram Wooster, KG.[19]
In 2019, Affable Media produced his video, Confessions of a Publisher: It Doesn't Have To Be Like This, But Somehow It Just Is.[20]
In 2020, Unicorn published his spiritual abstract art book Truth and Beauty: The Art of Sophie Chang.[21]
In 2021, Affable Media published his historical fiction title A Case of Royal Blackmail by Sherlock Holmes.[22]
In 2022, he wrote and produced the short film Undead and Alive, a zombie/witch romcom.[23]
In 2023, Affable Media published his satirical play Nigel Molesworth’s Cynical Tendency.[24]
In 2024, Affable Media published his children's book Pepper and Poncho: Adventures on the African Plains, written in conjunction with the artist Sophie Walbeoffe.[25]
In 2012, he qualified as a civil and commercial mediator with the Civil Mediation Council.[28] In 2013, he qualified as a Restorative Justice practitioner, registered with the Restorative Justice Council.[29] He is also the vice-chair and a trustee of The Society of Mediators.[30]
Coat of arms of Ian Macpherson, 3rd Baron Strathcarron
Crest
A cat-a-mountain sejant guardant having its dexter paw raised Proper.
Escutcheon
Per fess Or and Azure a galley of the first masts oars and tacking Proper flagged Gules in the dexter chief point a hand couped fesswise holding a dagger palewise and in the sinister a cross crosslet fitchee of the last over all a fess chequy of the second and Argent.
Supporters
Dexter a private soldier of the Cameron Highlanders in full service dress of the period 1916-18 sinister a Macpherson clansman of the period of 1745.
^(GAA), GLOBAL ALLIANCE AUTOMOTIVE Ltd. "Global Alliance Automotive". www.ga-automotive.com. Archived from the original on 17 August 2018. Retrieved 12 November 2018.
^Strathcarron, Ian (September 2018). Crikey! How Did That Happen?: The Refreshingly Unauthorised Biography of Sir Bertram Wooster, KG. ISBN978-1-78926-295-7.
Italics in entries mean the titleholder also holds a previously listed barony of greater precedence. ^* Also a Lord in the Peerage of Scotland, ^• Also a Baron in the Peerage of Ireland
