Early life Baird was born in
County Donegal in the
Irish Free State but moved with his family to
Belfast at an early age.
Career A
pharmacist and political
unionist, Baird became the deputy leader of the
Vanguard Progressive Unionist Party. He was elected at the
1973 Northern Ireland Assembly election for
Fermanagh and South Tyrone, and won a seat in the same constituency on the
Northern Ireland Constitutional Convention. When
William Craig, the leader of Vanguard, proposed forming a
coalition government with the
nationalist Social Democratic and Labour Party, Baird led the majority of Vanguard in leaving to form the
United Ulster Unionist Movement. Baird became the leader of the new grouping, which initially pursued a policy of uniting all unionist groups to form a new party. When this proved impossible, it instead constituted itself as the
United Ulster Unionist Party (UUUP), again with Baird as the leader. He then became a key member of the
United Unionist Action Council Baird stood for the UUUP in
Fermanagh and South Tyrone at the
1979 general election, but won only 17% of the vote, taking fourth position in the poll. At the
1982 Northern Ireland Assembly election, he fared even less well, taking only 2,022 first preference votes. Sometime after this poor performance, the UUUP was dissolved. Baird then confined his politics to the
Orange Order, while building up his "Baird's Chemists" chain that became one of Northern Ireland's leading chemists chain, before being bought over in 2011. ==References==