Sir Dudley Gordon Smith (14 November 1926 – 14 December 2016) was a British Conservative politician who served as a junior minister under Edward Heath.

He attended Chichester High School in West Sussex but left at the age of 16 to pursue in career in journalism which he started by joining the local paper.

Despite only being in the House for 4 years, in 1963 Smith played the leading role in opposing deportation of Anthony Enahoro to Nigeria where he would face charges of treason.

[3] Other areas that Smith took an interest in during his first parliament included sanitary concerns over the River Thames, and more radically local tax reform.

[3] As troubles grew for the then Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, Smith was part of a group of relatively young Tory MPs in early 1963 who called for a change in leadership.

[3] Their preference was Edward Heath, the Lord Privy Seal who would subsequently become leader and prime minister, or Reginald Maudling, the Chancellor of the Exchequer over that of then favourite Rab Butler, or Iain Macleod.

[3] 1974 saw him moved to the Ministry of Defence as Under-Secretary of State for the Army, a post he held for a mere nine weeks due to Heath's failed re-election bid in the February 1974 snap general election which saw the Prime Minister's rival, Harold Wilson, returned to power.

[3] Dudley Smith never returned to government, spending his time as vice-chairman of the Select Committee on Race Relations and Immigration between 1978 and 1979.

[4] Dudley Smith had been an early admirer of Mrs Thatcher, evidenced by his verbal support of the Public Bodies (Admission to Meetings) Act 1960, which she had drawn up and introduced her maiden speech.

Despite this, he demonstrated clear dissatisfaction with her leadership, which had been damaged by the resignation of Nigel Lawson and the Poll Tax, by using a football analogy in May 1990: “Do you sack the manager or don’t you?

[3] Over the latter half of his career, his business interests grew which led to criticism that he was just a voice for big drug companies in the House of Commons.

He criticised the then Labour Home Secretary, Merlyn Rees, who he felt had “completely failed to grasp the problem” of illegal immigration.

They divorced in 1973 following his wife's affair with her husband's fellow Conservative MP Tim Fortescue, member for Liverpool Garston, who she later married.