As Ulster Unionist MP for South Belfast, a Presbyterian minister and former Grand Master of the Orange Order in Ireland, the Rev Martin William Smyth (68) rises to this weekend's leadership challenge as an epitome of traditional, solid, old-style unionism.
Over the last 30 years, he has raised his head at numerous junctures as a potential UUP leader. At one time it was said that the DUP leader, the Rev Ian Paisley, had met his match in Mr Smyth and the two men have enjoyed a spirited rivalry.
Although now identified as a member of the anti-agreement and right wing of the party, he has early roots as a cautious peacemaker when he became involved in confidential talks with Mr John Hume and Mr Paddy Devlin of the SDLP in the 1970s. The talks were leaked to the media by the DUP.
Mr Smyth was one of the most prominent opponents of the Anglo-Irish Agreement and he has been outspoken against the Belfast Agreement. He refused to back the party leadership's decision to enter all-party talks in 1997. In the traditional unionist mould, he vilified anything which could lead to a loosening of the union.
However in 1993 he advocated that Sinn Fein be included in political dialogue if the IRA ended violence and gave up arms. "If those conditions are met, then unionists will have to learn to deal with Sinn Fein whether they like it or not," he said. Mr Smyth was criticised from within his own party and was lambasted by the DUP for the suggestion.
The son of a plumber, Mr Smyth was born in June 1931 and raised just off the loyalist Donegall Road. Educated in the Methodist College in Belfast, Trinity College Dublin and Magee University in Derry, he had an early calling to the church and was ordained in 1957.
In the same year he married his wife, Kathleen. One of his three daughters, Margaret, died aged four when she was knocked down by a car on the Cavehill Road in north Belfast in 1974.
He rose to the top of the Orange Order in 1972, an organisation he had joined as a junior on Sandy Row. Three years later he was elected to the Northern Ireland convention for the South Belfast constituency on the United Ulster Unionist Movement ticket and polled more than 15,000 first-preference votes.
In 1982 he ran for the South Belfast constituency, to the chagrin of the DUP who had argued for a united unionist candidate. He won the seat of the Rev Robert Bradford, who was shot dead by the IRA in November 1981.
Over the years he has advocated colourful political notions. In the 1980s he suggested that unionists examine a federal framework of the two islands with a place open for the Republic to rejoin the UK.
He also proposed a scheme for the annexation of Donegal, Monaghan and Cavan into the North. In 1985 he claimed that politicians in the Republic were "schizophrenic" in their attitude to violence and "no different" to the Provisional IRA and the INLA.
As a Presbyterian minister, he would have been regarded a member of the church's conservative evangelical wing. In 1988 he spent a short spell in jail for the non-payment of a fine served for involvement in an illegal protest march.
At one point he was thought to be the most likely member to succeed James Molyneaux as party leader. However, his chances were dented considerably when he organised a mass demonstration against the Anglo-Irish Agreement and only 3,000 people turned out when he had predicted a crowd of 300,000.
His position as head of the Orange Order, which at one point extended to imperial head of the organisation around the world, did much to fuel his political career. He retired from the post in 1996 after 24 years. When he finally challenged to succeed Lord Molyneaux in 1995, it was a five-horse race and he came in last with 60 votes. The new UUP leader, Mr David Trimble, appointed Mr Smyth as chief whip to the parliamentary party with responsibility for health and family affairs.
He is popular within the Ulster Unionist Party, of which he is vice-president, for his support of family values and his anti-abortion stance.