
Edgar Graham (1954-7 December 1983) was a member of the Northern Ireland Assembly from 20 October 1982 to 7 December 1983 for South Belfast, preceding Frank Millar, Jr.. Graham, a member of the Ulster Unionist Party, was assassinated by the Provisional IRA in 1983.
Biography[]
Edgar Graham was born in 1954 to a family of Presbyterian Ulster Scots, and he was a Queen's University, Belfast graduate. In 1979, he was called to the bar in Northern Ireland while working on his doctorate at Oxford in England, and he became a member of the law faculty at Queen's University. Graham befriended his coworker David Trimble, and many believed that Graham would one day become the leader of the Ulster Unionist Party. In 1982, he was elected to the Northern Ireland Assembly as the representative from South Belfast. Graham was put on a Provisional IRA hit list for giving aid and advice to the prison service of the Royal Ulster Constabulary, as well as for being a threat to Sinn Fein due to his status as a rising star within the UUP. On 7 December 1983, while speaking with UUP colleague Dermot Nesbitt near the library of Queen's University, he was shot in the head multiple times by an IRA gunman, dying almost instantly.