Walter Monckton, 1st Viscount Monckton of Brenchley

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Walter Turner Monckton, 1st Viscount Monckton of Brenchley GCVO KCMG MC PC KC (born January 17, 1891 in Plaxtol, Kent , England , † January 9, 1965 ) was a British politician of the Conservative Party .

Life

After attending Harrow School studied Monckton law at Balliol College of Oxford University and in 1913 was president of the Oxford Union. During the First World War he did his military service in the British Army and was awarded the Military Cross for his bravery . In 1918 he received his legal license and then worked as a barrister . In addition to his work as a court correspondent for Hythe from 1930 to 1937, he was in 1932 Crown Attorney for the Duchy of Cornwall . In 1936 he was legal advisor to King Edward VIII when he abdicated . He received the first KCVO in the reign of George VI for his role in the 1937 abdication crisis . He remained active in an advisory capacity for the abdicated king and, among other things, mediated his return from the Iberian Peninsula and the acceptance of the governor's title of the Bahamas .

In the late 1930s and early 1940s, Monckton repeatedly turned down offers from the leaders of the time ( Neville Chamberlain and Winston Churchill ) to run in a “safe” constituency for the Conservatives, probably because of his strong socialist personal views. From the beginning of the Second World War he was Director General of the Press and Censorship Office in the Ministry of Information and in December 1940 became Director General of the entire Ministry. After the founding of the 1941 Committee , he took part in its meetings several times. During the war he corresponded intensively with the Labor politician Stafford Cripps , who was then ambassador to Moscow. In 1941 he went to Cairo for a year, where he directed British propaganda in the Middle East. He spent the remainder of the war in high quasi-public positions but remained outside of government.

Between May and July 1945 he was Solicitor General for England and Wales in the interim government of Prime Minister Winston Churchill for a short time . In addition to his legal work, he was also active as a sport functionary in cricket and was initially president of the Surrey County Cricket Club from 1950 to 1952. In the general election of October 25, 1951 , he was elected as a candidate for the Conservative Party for the first time as a member of the House of Commons and represented in this until 1957 the constituency of Bristol West .

In 1951 Prime Minister Churchill appointed him Minister for Labor and National Service in his government. In the subsequent cabinet of Churchill's successor Anthony Eden , he was first Secretary of Defense between December 1955 and December 1956 and then Paymaster General until the end of Eden's tenure in 1957 .

Monckton, who was also President of the Marylebone Cricket Club between 1956 and 1957, resigned from the House of Commons on February 11, 1957, was raised to the hereditary nobility as Viscount Monckton of Brenchley and thus belonged to the House of Lords until his death . At the same time he switched to the private sector and was not only Chairman of the Board of Management of Midland Bank between 1957 and 1964 , but also, for a short time, Chairman of the Board of Management of Iraq Petroleum Company in 1958 . In addition, he was again President of the Surrey County Cricket Club between 1959 and 1965 and first Chancellor of the newly founded University of Sussex from 1961 to 1965 .

When he died in 1965, his son Gilbert Walter Riversdale followed him as 2nd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley and as a member of the House of Lords. His second wife, Bridget Helen Hore-Ruthven , with whom he had been married since 1947, was the 11th  Lady Ruthven of Freeland due to the Peerage Act 1963, also between 1963 and her death in 1982 a member of the House of Lords. His grandson is the journalist Christopher Monckton , now the 3rd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley, who has been chairman of the UK Independence Party since November 2010 .

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predecessor Office successor
New title created Viscount Monckton of Brenchley
1957-1965 		Gilbert Monckton
personal data
SURNAME Monckton, Walter, 1st Viscount Monckton of Brenchley
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Monckton of Brenchley, Walter Turner Monckton, 1st Viscount (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British lawyer and politician (Conservative Party), member of the House of Commons
DATE OF BIRTH January 17, 1891
PLACE OF BIRTH Plaxtol, Kent , England
DATE OF DEATH January 9, 1965