Geoffrey Mander

Geoffrey Le Mesurier Mander (born March 6, 1882 in Wolverhampton , † September 9, 1962 in Wightwick Manor near Wolverhampton) was a British politician ( Liberal Party ), industrialist and patron.

Life and activity

Mander was a son of Samuel Theodor Mander and his wife Flora, geb. St. Clair Paint. Through his father he belonged to a well-known industrial family (Mander Brothers) who had specialized in the production of paints and varnishes in Wolverhampton. His younger brother was the actor and director Miles Mander.

After attending Harrow School and Trinity College at the University of Oxford , Mander served in the Royal Flying Corps during the First World War .

As an industrialist, Mander was at the head of the Mander Brothers Group for many years, where he stood out for his socially progressive attitude. His company was the first in Great Britain to introduce the forty-hour week in 1931 .

On the occasion of the British general elections in 1929 , Mander was a candidate for the Liberal Party in the Wolverhampton East constituency as a member of the House of Commons , the British Parliament. He then belonged to this until the elections in the summer of 1945, in which he lost his seat to John Baird , the opponent of the Conservative Party. In the sixteen years of his parliamentary membership, his mandate had been confirmed twice, in the 1931 and 1935 elections. In Parliament, Mander devoted himself in particular to the field of foreign policy, where he was particularly noticeable for his sharp positioning against the so-called appeasement policy of the Baldwin and Chamberlain governments towards the European dictators in the years 1935 to 1938.

At the end of the 1930s, Mander was classified as an important target by the National Socialist police forces. In the spring of 1940 the Reich Main Security Office in Berlin put him on the special wanted list GB , a list of people whom the Nazi surveillance apparatus regarded as particularly dangerous or important, which is why they would be succeeded by the occupation troops in the event of a successful invasion and occupation of the British Isles by the Wehrmacht Special SS commandos were to be identified and arrested with special priority.

In 1948 Mander joined the Labor Party , which had largely replaced the Liberal Party as the second decisive force in British politics alongside the Conservatives. For the Labor Party he was a member of the County Council of Staffordshire.

During World War II, Mander served as the private parliamentary secretary of Archibald Sinclair , the Secretary of State for Aviation in the Churchill government .

As a patron of the arts, at the request of Charles Trevelyan , Mander signed over his villa Wightwick Manor, together with the art collection housed in it, to the National Trust in 1937 , which took over the house and collection after his death.

family

Mander was married to Rosalind Florence Caverhill in 1906. In his second marriage in 1930 he married Mary Rosalie Glynn Grylls (1905-1988). The latter was the author of numerous biographies on personalities such as Mary Shelley (1938), Claire Clairmont (1939), William Godwin (1953) and Dante Rossetti (1964). From the first marriage the sons Mervyn Caverhill Mander and Mavis Flora Rosalind Mander and the daughter Elizabeth Brehaut Mander emerged, from the second marriage the son John Geoffrey Grylls Mander and the daughter Anthea Loveday Veronica Mander.

literature

• Obituary in Times on February 28, 1964.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Entry on Mander on the special wanted list GB (reproduced on the website of the Imperial War Museum in London)