Among other posts, Grimond was a barrister and publisher in the 1930s, an army major during World War II, Secretary of the National Trust for Scotland from 1947 to 1949, and held the Rectorships of the University of Edinburgh and the University of Aberdeen and the Chancellorship of the University of Kent at Canterbury (elected in 1970). His many books include "The Liberal Future" (1959, credited with reinvigorating radical liberalism as a coherent modern ideology), "The Liberal Challenge" (1963), and "Memoirs" (1979).