James Stanhope, 7th Earl Stanhope
The Right Honourable The Earl Stanhope KG DSO MC PC | |
---|---|
Leader of the House of Lords | |
In office 21 February 1938 – 14 May 1940 | |
Prime Minister | Neville Chamberlain |
Preceded by | The Viscount Halifax |
Succeeded by | The Viscount Caldecote |
Lord President of the Council | |
In office 3 September 1939 – 10 May 1940 | |
Prime Minister | Neville Chamberlain |
Preceded by | The Viscount Runciman of Doxford |
Succeeded by | Neville Chamberlain |
First Lord of the Admiralty | |
In office 27 October 1938 – 3 September 1939 | |
Prime Minister | Neville Chamberlain |
Preceded by | Duff Cooper |
Succeeded by | Winston Churchill |
President of the Board of Education | |
In office 28 May 1937 – 27 October 1938 | |
Prime Minister | Neville Chamberlain |
Preceded by | Hon. Oliver Stanley |
Succeeded by | The Earl De La Warr |
First Commissioner of Works | |
In office 16 June 1936 – 27 May 1937 | |
Prime Minister | Stanley Baldwin |
Preceded by | Hon. William Ormsby-Gore |
Succeeded by | Sir Philip Sassoon, Bt |
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs | |
In office 18 January 1934 – 16 June 1936 | |
Prime Minister | Ramsay MacDonald Stanley Baldwin |
Preceded by | Anthony Eden |
Succeeded by | Viscount Cranborne |
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for War | |
In office 10 November 1931 – 18 January 1934 | |
Prime Minister | Ramsay MacDonald |
Preceded by | The Lord Marley |
Succeeded by | The Lord Strathcona and Mount Royal |
Parliamentary and Financial Secretary to the Admiralty | |
In office 24 August 1931 – 10 November 1931 | |
Prime Minister | Ramsay MacDonald |
Preceded by | Charles Ammon |
Succeeded by | Lord Stanley |
Civil Lord of the Admiralty | |
In office 11 November 1924 – 7 June 1929 | |
Prime Minister | Stanley Baldwin |
Preceded by | Frank Hodges |
Succeeded by | George Hall |
Parliamentary Secretary to the War Office | |
In office 14 December 1916 – 10 January 1919 | |
Prime Minister | David Lloyd George |
Preceded by | Position established |
Succeeded by | Position abolished |
Member of the House of Lords Lord Temporal | |
In office 20 April 1905 – 15 August 1967 Hereditary Peerage | |
Preceded by | The 6th Earl Stanhope |
Succeeded by | The 11th Earl of Harrington (as viscount Stanhope of Mahon) |
Personal details | |
Born | James Richard Stanhope (1880-11-11)11 November 1880 |
Died | 15 August 1967(1967-08-15) (aged 86) |
Nationality | British |
Political party | Conservative |
Spouse(s) | Lady Eileen Browne (1889–1940)[1] |
Parent(s) | Arthur Stanhope, 6th Earl Stanhope Evelyn Pennefather |
James Richard Stanhope, 7th Earl Stanhope, KG, DSO, MC, PC (11 November 1880 – 15 August 1967), styled Viscount Mahon until 1905, was a British Conservative politician.
Background
Stanhope was the eldest son of Arthur Stanhope, 6th Earl Stanhope, and Evelyn Henrietta (née Pennefather), daughter of Richard Pennefather of Knockeevan, County Tipperary and Lady Emily Butler. The Hon. Edward Stanhope and Philip Stanhope, 1st Baron Weardale, were his uncles.[citation needed]
Lord Mahon was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Grenadier Guards on 5 January 1901,[2] and went with his battalion to serve in South Africa during the Second Boer War. Following the end of this war in June 1902, he returned with a large contingent of men from the guards regiments on board the SS Lake Michigan, which arrived in Southampton in October 1902.[3]
Political career
Stanhope entered the House of Lords on the death of his father in 1905, and made his maiden speech in November 1909.[4] He held his first office as Parliamentary Secretary to the War Office under David Lloyd George between 1918 and 1919. In 1924 he was appointed Civil Lord of the Admiralty under Stanley Baldwin, a post he held until the Conservatives lost power in 1929. The latter year he was also sworn of the Privy Council.[5] After the formation of the National Government in 1931 he served under Ramsay MacDonald as Parliamentary and Financial Secretary to the Admiralty in 1931, as Under-Secretary of State for War between 1931 and 1934 and as Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, the last year under the premiership of Stanley Baldwin. In 1934 he was made a Knight Companion of the Garter.
He entered the cabinet in June 1936 when Baldwin appointed him First Commissioner of Works. When Neville Chamberlain became Prime Minister in May 1937 Stanhope was made President of the Board of Education, and in February 1938 he also succeeded E. F. L. Wood, 1st Earl of Halifax as Leader of the House of Lords. In October 1938 he became First Lord of the Admiralty while continuing as Leader of the House of Lords. After the outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939, he was succeeded as First Lord of the Admiralty by Winston Churchill and appointed Lord President of the Council. He remained as Leader of the House of Lords and Lord President until Churchill became Prime Minister in 1940. However, he did not serve in the Churchill coalition government and never returned to ministerial office. He made his last speech in the House of Lords in December 1960.[4]
In July 1940, Stanhope and several other national politicians—including Baldwin and Chamberlain—were targeted in the polemic Guilty Men.[6] This publication accused these men of failing to prepare Britain for the looming war, and of appeasing Nazi Germany during the 1930s.[7] The accusations made in Guilty Men have subsequently been questioned by some critics.[8][9]
Family
Lord Stanhope married Lady Eileen Browne (1889–1940), the eldest daughter of George Browne, 6th Marquess of Sligo, and Agatha Stewart Hodgson, granddaughter of William Forsyth. They had no children. She died in September 1940, aged 51. With the death of Edward Scudamore-Stanhope, 12th Earl of Chesterfield, in 1952, Lord Stanhope inherited the peerage titles Earl of Chesterfield and Baron Stanhope, but did not apply for a writ of summons for the more senior Earldom of Chesterfield, and continued to be known as The Earl Stanhope. Stanhope died in August 1967, aged 86. On his death both earldoms and the barony of Stanhope became extinct, whereas the viscountcy of Stanhope of Mahon and the barony of Stanhope of Elvaston passed to his nearest heir, William Stanhope, 11th Earl of Harrington.[citation needed] Lord Stanhope left his country seat Chevening to the nation.
Arms
|
References
- ^ "Death notice". The Times, London, Sept. 23. 1940.
- ^ Hart′s Army list, 1903
- ^ "The Army in South Africa – Troops returning home". The Times. No. 36876. London. 18 September 1902. p. 5.
- ^ a b hansard-millbanksystem.com James Stanhope, 7th Earl Stanhope.
- ^ "No. 33492". The London Gazette. 7 August 1929. p. 3003.
- ^ Cato (1940). Guilty Men. London: Victor Gollancz. OCLC 301463537.
- ^ Dutton, D. J. (2006). "Guilty men (act. 1940)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/70401. ISBN 978-0-19-861412-8. Retrieved 5 October 2013. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
- ^ Scott Kelly, "The Ghost of Neville Chamberlain: Guilty Men and the 1945 Election" Archived 2007-09-27 at the Wayback Machine, Conservative History Journal, Autumn 2005
- ^ Geoffrey Mander, We were not all wrong – How the Labour and Liberal Parties (& also the anti-Munich Tories) strove, pre-war, for the policy of collective security against aggression – with adequate armaments to make that policy effective: the truth about the peace ballot: etc, etc. (London: Victor Gollancz, 1944)
External links
- Newspaper clippings about James Stanhope, 7th Earl Stanhope in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBW
Political offices | ||
---|---|---|
Preceded by Frank Hodges | Civil Lord of the Admiralty 1924–1929 | Succeeded by |
Preceded by | Parliamentary and Financial Secretary to the Admiralty 1931 | Succeeded by Lord Stanley |
Vacant | Under-Secretary of State for War 1931–1934 | Succeeded by |
Preceded by | Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs 1934–1936 With: Viscount Cranborne (1935–1936) | Succeeded by |
Preceded by | First Commissioner of Works 1936–1937 | Succeeded by |
Preceded by | President of the Board of Education 1937–1938 | Succeeded by |
Preceded by | Leader of the House of Lords 1938–1940 | Succeeded by |
Preceded by | First Lord of the Admiralty 1938–1939 | Succeeded by |
Preceded by | Lord President of the Council 1939–1940 | Succeeded by |
Party political offices | ||
Preceded by | Leader of the Conservative Party in the House of Lords 1938–1940 | Succeeded by |
Peerage of England | ||
Preceded by | Earl of Chesterfield 1952–1967 | Extinct |
Peerage of Great Britain | ||
Preceded by | Earl Stanhope 1905–1967 | Extinct |
Viscount Stanhope of Mahon 1905–1967 | Succeeded by |
- v
- t
- e
- The Earl of Portland
- The Earl of Lindsey
- William Juxon, Bishop of Lincoln
- The Earl of Northumberland
- The Lord Cottington
- Sir Henry Capell
- The Earl of Nottingham
- The Earl of Torrington
- The Earl of Pembroke
- The Lord Cornwallis
- The Viscount Falkland
- The Earl of Orford
- The Earl of Bridgewater
- The Earl of Pembroke
- The Earl of Orford
- Sir John Leake
- The Earl of Strafford
- The Earl of Orford
- The Earl of Berkeley
- The Viscount Torrington
- Sir Charles Wager
- The Earl of Winchilsea
- The Duke of Bedford
- The Earl of Sandwich
- The Lord Anson
- The Earl Temple
- The Earl of Winchilsea
- The Lord Anson
- The Earl of Halifax
- George Grenville
- The Earl of Sandwich
- The Earl of Egmont
- Sir Charles Saunders
- Sir Edward Hawke
- The Earl of Sandwich
- The Viscount Keppel
- The Viscount Howe
- The Viscount Keppel
- The Viscount Howe
- The Earl of Chatham
- The Earl Spencer
- The Earl of St Vincent
- The Viscount Melville
- The Lord Barham
- Viscount Howick
- Thomas Grenville
- The Lord Mulgrave
- Charles Philip Yorke
- The Viscount Melville
- The Duke of Clarence
- The Viscount Melville
- Sir James Graham, Bt
- The Lord Auckland
- The Earl de Grey
- The Lord Auckland
- The Earl of Minto
- The Earl of Haddington
- The Earl of Ellenborough
- The Earl of Auckland
- Sir Francis Baring, Bt
- The Duke of Northumberland
- Sir James Graham, Bt
- Sir Charles Wood, Bt
- Sir John Pakington, Bt
- The Duke of Somerset
- Sir John Pakington, Bt
- Henry Lowry-Corry
- Hugh Childers
- George Goschen
- George Ward Hunt
- William Henry Smith
- The Earl of Northbrook
- Lord George Hamilton
- The Marquess of Ripon
- Lord George Hamilton
- The Earl Spencer
- George Goschen
- The Earl of Selborne
- The Earl Cawdor
- The Lord Tweedmouth
- Reginald McKenna
- Winston Churchill
- Arthur Balfour
- Sir Edward Carson
- Sir Eric Geddes
- Walter Long
- The Viscount Lee of Fareham
- Wood
- Anderson
- Leo Amery
- The Viscount Chelmsford
- The Viscount Bridgeman
- A. V. Alexander
- Sir Austen Chamberlain
- The Viscount Monsell
- Sir Samuel Hoare, Bt
- Duff Cooper
- The Earl Stanhope
- Winston Churchill
- A. V. Alexander
- Brendan Bracken
- A. V. Alexander
- The Viscount Hall
- Lord Pakenham
- Viscount Cilcennin
- The Viscount Hailsham
- The Earl of Selkirk
- The Lord Carrington
- The Earl Jellicoe