Oliver Lyttelton, 1st Viscount Chandos

Oliver Lyttelton (right) with the Ambassador to Egypt Miles Lampson in July 1941

Oliver Lyttelton 1. Viscount Chandos , KG, PC, DSO, MC (born March 15, 1893 in Mayfair , † January 21, 1972 in Marylebone ) was a British businessman who was involved in various ministerial posts in the British government from the Second World War .

Life

He was the son of Alfred Lyttelton (1857-1913), a younger son of George Lyttelton, 4th Baron Lyttelton , and his second wife Edith Balfour.

He studied at Eton and Trinity College , Cambridge. During World War I he served in the Grenadier Guards and was awarded the Distinguished Service Order and Military Cross .

He was managing director of the British Metal Corporation (BMC) at a time when it was a major shareholder in " Metallgesellschaft AG ", which, under the direction of Hermann Schmitz, contributed significantly to the financing of the NSDAP . He was also a director of the London Tin Corporation and Associated Electrical Industries .

In 1940 he won a seat in the House of Commons for the Conservative Party in the Aldershot constituency and was accepted into the Privy Council .

From 1940 to 1941 he was Chairman of the Trade Committee ( President of the Board of Trade ) in Churchill's wartime government , and from 1941 to 1942 Minister of State in the Middle East , as which he was an important actor in the state crisis was in Egypt in 1942 , from 1942 to 1945 Minister of Production ( Minister of Production ) and in 1945 once again chairman of the trade committee. After the Conservative Party won the general election in 1951 , he was Secretary of State for the Colonies from 1951 to 1954 .

On September 9, 1954 he was raised to the hereditary nobility as Viscount Chandos , of Aldershot in the County of Southampton , which was also associated with a seat in the House of Lords . His mandate in the House of Commons, which became vacant, went to his party friend Eric Errington after the by-election in Aldershot in 1954 .

He then returned to Associated Electrical Industries which, under his leadership, developed into a strong selling British company.

In 1961 he was invited to give the MacMillan Memorial Reading to the Association of Scottish Engineers and Shipbuilders, choosing the Jungle-or Cloister? - Some Thoughts on the Present Industrial Scene ("Jungle or Cloister? - Some Thoughts on the Present Industrial Scene ").

In 1970 he was accepted as a Knight Bachelor in the Order of the Garter.

From 1962 to 1971 he was chairman of the board of directors of the Royal National Theater in South Bank, which his parents had been promoting and the Lyttelton Theater was named. Directed by Kenneth Tynan played John Colicos Winston Churchill in Rolf Hochhuth soldiers where the plane crash in Gibraltar (1943) was discussed. On April 24, 1967, the theater's board of directors met under the chairmanship of Lyttelton, describing the play as grotesque and seriously offensive and removing it from the program.

The Lyttelton Ridge ridge in Antarctica bears his name in his honor.

Marriage and offspring

In January 1920 he married Moira Godolphin Osborne (* May 20, 1892, † May 1976), daughter of the 10th Duke of Leeds . With her he had a daughter and three sons.

When he died in 1972, his son Anthony Lyttelton inherited his title of nobility.

literature

• Simon Ball: The Guardsmen: Harold Macmillan, Three Friends and the World They Made . Harper Perennial, London 2005, ISBN 978-0-00-653163-0 . (English speaking).

Web links

Commons : Oliver Lyttelton, 1st Viscount Chandos  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Newspaper article about Oliver Lyttelton, 1st Viscount Chandos in the 20th century press kit of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Simiyu Wandibba, Joseph Thuranira, Social Studies 8 for primary schools: Pupil's Book, page 185
2. ^ The Oxford Encyclopedia of British Literature . P. 83

predecessor	Office	successor
New title created	Viscount Chandos 1954-1972	Anthony Lyttelton