He was a soldier, farmer, prison reformer, approved school manager,[1] and consumers' champion .
[2] He was educated at Eton College (where he founded a jazz band called The Eton Outcasts) and at Trinity College, Cambridge, and married Frances Lonsdale in 1935.
In 1939 he was commissioned into the Royal Engineers and served throughout the Second World War, reaching the rank of lieutenant-colonel and being appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 1943.
[3] He was Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Northern Ireland Office from 1974 to 1976, and served as Minister for the Arts from 1976 until the end of James Callaghan's government three years later.
The United Kingdom's National Portrait Gallery holds the following portrait featuring Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge as a sitter: Exhibit number P528: John George Stuart Donaldson, Baron Donaldson of Kingsbridge and Frances Annesley (née Lonsdale), Lady Donaldson of Kingsbridge by Derry Moore, 12th Earl of Drogheda.