The Right Honourable Leo Amery CH |
|
---|---|
First Lord of the Admiralty | |
In office 31 October 1922 – 28 January 1924 |
|
Monarch | George V |
Prime Minister | Bonar Law, Stanley Baldwin |
Preceded by | The Lord Lee of Fareham |
Succeeded by | The Lord Chelmsford |
Secretary of State for the Colonies | |
In office 6 November 1924 – 4 June 1929 |
|
Monarch | George V |
Prime Minister | Stanley Baldwin |
Preceded by | James Henry Thomas |
Succeeded by | The Lord Passfield |
Secretary of State for India and Burma | |
In office 13 May 1940 – 26 July 1945 |
|
Monarch | George VI |
Prime Minister | Winston Churchill |
Preceded by | The Lord Zetland |
Succeeded by | The Lord Pethick-Lawrence |
Personal details | |
Born |
Leopold Charles Maurice Stennett Amery 22 November 1873 Gorakhpur, British India |
Died | 16 September 1955 London, England |
(aged 81)
Nationality | British |
Political party | Conservative |
Education |
Harrow School Balliol College, Oxford All Souls College, Oxford |
Profession | Politician |
Leopold Charles Maurice Stennett Amery CH (22 November 1873 – 16 September 1955), usually known as Leo Amery or L. S. Amery, was a British Conservative Party politician and journalist, noted for his interest in military preparedness, British India and the British Empire and for his opposition to appeasement.
Leopold Amery was born in Gorakhpur, India, to an English father and a Hungarian Jewish mother. His father was Charles Frederick Amery (1833–1901), of Lustleigh, Devon, an officer in the Indian Forestry Commission. His mother Elisabeth Johanna Saphir (c. 1841–1908), who was the sister of the orientalist Gottlieb Wilhelm Leitner, had come to India from England, where her parents had settled and converted to Protestantism. In 1877, his mother moved back to England from India, and in 1885, she divorced Charles.
In 1887, Amery went to Harrow School, where he was a contemporary of Winston Churchill. Amery represented Harrow at gymnastics and held the top position in examinations for a number of years; he also won prizes and scholarships.
After Harrow, he went to Balliol College, Oxford, where he performed well. He gained a First in classical moderations in 1894; in literae humaniores in 1896 and was proxime accessit (runner-up) to the Craven scholar in 1894 and Ouseley scholar in Turkish in 1896. He also won a half-blue in cross-country running.
He was elected a fellow of All Souls College. Undoubtedly intelligent, he could speak Hindi at 3; Amery was born in India and would naturally have acquired the language of his (nanny). He could converse in French, German, Italian, Bulgarian, Turkish, Serbian and Hungarian.