23-04-2025
Michael Gove takes title Lord Gove of Torry, in father's honour
Michael Gove has revealed that he will pay tribute to the working-class community where his late father ran a business when he enters the House of Lords.
The former Conservative cabinet member will take on the title Lord Gove of Torry when he becomes a peer next month.
Gove, 57, disclosed that the title was in honour of the maritime area of Aberdeen where his father, Ernest, ran a fish-processing business.
'It's really in memory of my dad who passed away in 2023. He meant everything to me. He was a wonderful man,' Gove told the Aberdeen Evening Express.
'I'd love for my dad to be remembered just as he was; a hard worker, a good businessman and someone who always cared about other people, someone who always tried to give a start to people others didn't see the potential in.'
Gove, born Graeme Andrew Logan in Aberdeen on August 26, 1967, was taken in and then adopted by Ernest Gove and his wife, Christine. He arrived at his new family with nothing but the clothes he was wearing.
'I felt that I wanted to take the title particularly in honour of my dad but also in recognition of my parents,' he said.
'My parents adopted me when I was four months old. I'd never have been able to achieve anything in my life if it hadn't been for their love and kindness.'
Gove stood down as an MP last year and was given a peerage in Rishi Sunak's resignation honours list as prime minister.
He was brought up in Aberdeen and attended the council-run Sunnybank and Kittybrewster primary schools before passing the entrance exam for the city's Robert Gordon's College, which is fee-paying.
After studying at Oxford University he returned to his home city where he got his first job in journalism with the Press and Journal. As a member of the National Union of Journalists he held placards on picket lines during a bitter industrial dispute.
Gove described Torry as a resilient community
ALAMY
Gove also appeared, alongside a team of other reporters, on the Grampian TV quiz show Top Club where he declared that his interests included: 'Real ale and real women.'
'Aberdeen shaped me,' he said. 'People in Aberdeen might regret that now and say 'why do we get the blame?' But it's Aberdeen that made me.'
He hit the headlines in 2021 when he was filmed dancing and partying, on a solo night out, at a city centre nightclub.
Gove never stood for election in Aberdeen which is now an SNP stronghold. The party holds every Holyrood and Westminster seat and is running the city council.
When asked what residents of Torry, a proud blue-collar community, would make of his title, he said, 'I don't know. I hope that people will recognise that this is born of affection and respect. Torry as a community has been resilient through thick and thin. One of the things I witnessed was the decline in the fishing trade there. I'm paying my respect to somewhere that's very special.
'It may be that people are scunnered or pleased.'
