Roundell Palmer, 3rd Earl of Selborne

Roundell Palmer, 3rd Earl of Selborne (May 1942)

Roundell Cecil Palmer, 3rd Earl of Selborne , CH , PC ( April 15, 1887 - September 3, 1971 ) was a British peer and politician of the Conservative Party . From 1887 to 1942 he carried the courtesy title Viscount Wolmer .

He was a member of the House of Commons for thirty years and a member of the House of Lords for thirty-one years . During the Second World War he held the post of Minister of Economic Warfare in Churchill's wartime government between 1942 and 1945 .

Life

Family background, Member of the House of Commons and Junior Minister

Roundell Palmer was the second of four children and the eldest son of William Palmer, 2nd Earl of Selborne , who was a member of the House of Commons and First Lord of the Admiralty and Minister of Agriculture for ten years, and his wife, Lady Beatrix Maud Cecil, a daughter of the three-time Prime Minister Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury . His older sister, Lady Mabel Laura Georgiana Palmer, was the wife of Charles Gray, 5th Earl Gray . His younger brother Robert Stafford Arthur Palmer was a lawyer and fell on January 21, 1916 as captain of the Hampshire Regiment during the First World War , while his youngest brother William Jocelyn Lewis Palmer was also a lawyer, captain of the Hampshire Regiment and local politician. He attended the prestigious Winchester College, founded in 1382, and then began studying at the University College of the University of Oxford , which he completed in 1909 with a Master of Arts (MA).

In the election on December 3, 1910 , Palmer was the first time a member of the House of Commons for the Conservative Party , in which he represented the Newton constituency until December 14, 1918 . In 1911 he was magistrate (Justice of the Peace) for Hampshire . He was also in 1916 Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Undersecretary of State in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and from 1916 to 1918 Deputy Director of the War Trade Department . In the election on December 14, 1918 , he was re-elected a member of the House of Commons and represented the constituency of Aldershot until November 11, 1940 . He was between October 1922 and January 1924 Cabinet Bonar Law and in the first government Baldwin Parliamentary Secretary, Ministry of Commerce (Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade) and after November 1924 to June 1929 in the second government Baldwin Deputy Postmaster General (Assistant Postmaster -General) . On 5 July 1929, he was also a member of the Secret Privy Council ( Privy Council ), and also served as a Major in the 3rd battalion of the Hampshire Regiment .

House of Lords and Minister

Roundell Palmer as Secretary of State for Economic Warfare in his London office

On November 11, 1940, he was appointed to the House of Lords by Writ of Acceleration . He inherited the subordinate title Baron Selborne prematurely from his father and left the House of Commons. He was a member of the House of Lords for more than thirty years until his death on September 3, 1971. Between 1940 and 1942 he was the head of the cement department in the Ministry of Works and Buildings . During the Second World War he took over the post of Minister of Economic Warfare in the war government of Prime Minister Winston Churchill from Hugh Dalton on February 22, 1942 and held this post of minister until May 23, 1945.

When his father died on February 6, 1942, he also inherited his remaining titles as 3rd Earl of Selborne and 3rd Viscount Wolmer . On January 1, 1945, he was appointed a member of the Order of the Companions of Honor (CH). In 1948 he became a Master of the Worshipful Company of Mercers , the most important Livery Company . He was also chairman of the board of directors of the National Provincial Bank from 1951 to 1953 and vice chairman of the board of directors of the pharmaceutical company Boots the Chemists Ltd from 1951 to 1965 .

Marriages and offspring

Palmer was married twice, from June 9, 1910 to her death on September 22, 1959, to Grace Ridley, daughter of former House of Commons and Home Secretary Matthew White Ridley, 1st Viscount Ridley . From this marriage three daughters and four sons were born. The eldest daughter, Lady Anne Beatrice Mary Palmer, was married to the Reverend John Salusbury Brewis. His eldest son, William Matthew Palmer, Viscount Wolmer, died as a major in the Hampshire Regiment during World War II on October 2, 1942. His second son, John Ralph Roundell Palmer, died at the age of six months on November 13, 1914. The second daughter, Lady Laura Mary Palmer was the wife of Reverend Cyril Eastaugh , who was Bishop of Peterborough from 1961 to 1972 . His third son Robert Jocelyn Palmer served as a major in the Coldstream Guards and later became a local politician. His third and youngest daughter, Lady Mary Sophia Palmer, was Lady-in-Waiting of Princess Elisabeth between 1944 and 1949 and was first married to Thomas Anthony Edward Towneley Strachey, a son of Maurice Towneley-O'Hagan, 3rd Baron O'Hagan , and secondly to Francis St. John Corbet Gore, a trustee of the National Gallery . His youngest son, Edward Roundell Palmer, was a Fellow of the Royal Horticultural Society (FRHS) and husband of Joanna Constance Bacon, daughter of Edmund Bacon, 13th Baronet .

After the death of his first wife, Palmer married the Hungarian diplomatic daughter Valerie Irene Josephine Margaret de Thomka de Thomkahaza on March 3, 1966, but she died on December 5, 1968. On his death, his grandson John Roundell Palmer , the eldest son of son William Matthew Palmer, Viscount Wolmer, inherited the title of 4th Earl of Selborne and its subordinate titles.

Web links

• Roundell Palmer, 3rd Earl of Selborne in the Hansard (English)
• Entry in Cracroft's Peerage
• Entry in Leigh Rayment Peerage
• Roundell Cecil Palmer, 3rd Earl of Selborne on thepeerage.com , accessed August 16, 2017.
• PRIVY COUNSELLORS 1915-1968 in Leigh Rayment Peerage
• COMPANIONS OF HONOR in Leigh Rayment Peerage

predecessor	Office	successor
William Palmer	Baron Selborne (through Writ of Acceleration) 1940–1971	John Palmer
William Palmer	Earl of Selborne 1942-1971	John Palmer