As chairman of the Liberal party’s national executive from 1976, Geoffrey Tordoff, who has died aged 90, did much to contain the turmoil surrounding the party’s leader, Jeremy Thorpe. It sprang from allegations made by Thorpe’s former lover Norman Scott during the trial in which Andrew Newton, hired to kill Scott, was convicted of a firearms offence. Along with other senior Liberals, Geoff ensured Thorpe’s resignation as leader and persuaded the party at large to accept the inevitable and move on.

He served in the role until 1979, the year that Thorpe lost his seat in the general election and was acquitted of conspiracy to murder. Thorpe’s successor as leader, David Steel, blocked him from taking any further part in political life.

Geoff never entered the Commons himself, despite contesting two Cheshire constituencies in three general elections: Northwich in 1964 and Knutsford in 1966 and 1970. But he was active behind the scenes and became a close confidant of Steel after he took over from Jo Grimond, acting leader from May to July 1976.

In the years when James Callaghan’s Labour government gave way to Margaret Thatcher’s Conservatives, the Liberals were offered only occasional peerages to bestow. Geoff was next on the list when, in 1981, Steel decided instead to promote Christopher Mayhew, a former Labour MP and well-known broadcaster. Geoff was offered a knighthood by way of compensation, which he sensibly declined.

Another slot became available that year and he joined the Lords. There he achieved his full potential, serving as deputy and then chief whip of the Liberal peers (1983-88) and chief whip of the Liberal Democrats (1988-94). He was then elected principal deputy chairman of committees until 2001. This post entailed considerable administrative responsibilities, including chairing the Lords select committee on Europe. After the sudden death of the Conservative peer Lord (John) Mackay of Ardbrecknish at the age of 62, Geoff served as chairman for a further year. He acquitted himself with aplomb in the Lords, and in 2004 was appointed an extra lord in waiting to the Queen.

Born in Manchester, Geoff was the son of Annie (nee Johnson) and Stanley Tordoff. Stanley worked for the then avowedly Liberal Manchester Guardian, and in debates and mock elections at Manchester Grammar school, where he was a pupil, Geoff always represented the Liberals.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Lord Tordoff, left, with the SDP president Shirley Williams and leading Liberals Tim Clement-Jones and Adrian Slade at a Liberal assembly in Harrogate before the parties merged. Photograph: PA

However, it was Pat Swarbrick, an active Young Liberal, who encouraged him to join and become involved in the party; they married in 1953. From then on, there was no stopping him as a Liberal activist. The Suez crisis, the appeal of Grimond, whose main period of leadership ran from 1956 to 1967, and his own europhilia contributed to his zeal.

At Manchester University he studied chemistry, but too much time spent on student union business resulted in academic failure. By the end of his national service in 1949 he was a sergeant in the Royal Army Ordnance Corps.

He next secured a sales job with Manchester Chemicals which, later, was taken over by Shell Chemicals. With Shell, he began to progress up the management chain, serving in Birmingham and its London HQ. He also had some responsibilities in the company’s subsidiaries in the Lebanon and India. His career stalled, mainly because of his continuing and growing Liberal party commitments, but also because a director had an abiding hatred of the Liberals. He kept his job because his line manager refused to sack him, and continued until shortly after taking his seat in the Lords.

During his time there he also sat on the board of the Refugee Council (1990-95) and the Press Complaints Commission (1995-2002).

In 2013 Pat died and soon afterwards Geoff moved from Enfield, north London, to Ilkley. He retired from the Lords in 2016.

He is survived by three daughters, two sons, six granddaughters, two grandsons and a great-grandson.

Trevor Smith

Michael Meadowcroft writes: Geoff Tordoff was an extremely shrewd and dependable colleague. He was one of the handful of senior Liberals who behind the scenes in 1967 tried to prevent Jeremy Thorpe becoming party leader. Then, in 1978, during Geoff’s time as party chairman, Thorpe insisted on attending the party’s annual conference in Southport, despite being charged with conspiracy to murder, and contrary to the undertaking he had given David Steel.

A Liberal candidate tabled a motion of no-confidence in the party officers for their treatment of Thorpe. Geoff, Grufydd Evans, that year’s party president, and I, as conference committee chair, decided to take the motion head-on and to inform delegates of the facts of political life under Thorpe. We all agreed to resign on the spot if the motion was carried.

Delegates were amazed at what was revealed – the treatment of party staff; the existence of private funds; his preference for attending eltist functions rather than giving attention to party campaigns, etc – and the motion was withdrawn without a vote.

• Geoffrey Johnson Tordoff, Lord Tordoff, political organiser and working peer, born 11 October 1928; died 22 June 2019