The Right Honourable The Viscount Chandos KG DSO MC PC |
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President of the Board of Trade | |
In office 3 October 1940 – 29 June 1941 |
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Monarch | George VI |
Prime Minister | Winston Churchill |
Preceded by | Andrew Rae Duncan |
Succeeded by | Andrew Rae Duncan |
In office 25 May 1945 – 26 July 1945 |
|
Monarch | George VI |
Prime Minister | Winston Churchill |
Preceded by | Hugh Dalton |
Succeeded by | Hon. Sir Stafford Cripps |
Secretary of State for the Colonies | |
In office 28 October 1951 – 28 July 1954 |
|
Monarch | George VI Elizabeth II |
Prime Minister | Winston Churchill |
Preceded by | James Griffiths |
Succeeded by | Alan Lennox-Boyd |
Personal details | |
Born |
15 March 1893 Mayfair, London, UK |
Died | 21 January 1972 Marylebone, London, UK |
(aged 78)
Nationality | British |
Political party | Conservative |
Spouse(s) | Lady Moira Osborne (1892–1976) |
Alma mater | Trinity College, Cambridge |
Oliver Lyttelton, 1st Viscount Chandos, KG, DSO, MC, PC (15 March 1893 – 21 January 1972) was a British businessman from the Lyttelton family who was brought into government during the Second World War, holding a number of ministerial posts.
Born in Mayfair, London, Lord Chandos was the son of the Rt. Hon. Alfred Lyttelton, younger son of George Lyttelton, 4th Baron Lyttelton. His mother was his father's second wife Edith, daughter of Archibald Balfour. He was educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge. He served in the Grenadier Guards in the First World War, where he met Winston Churchill, and was awarded the Distinguished Service Order and Military Cross.
From 1947 to 1955 he served as the first President of Farnborough Bowling Club, Hampshire, in his Aldershot parliamentary constituency.
Chandos was managing director of British Metal Corporation, at a time when it was a major shareholder in "Metallgesellschaft A.G." a German Industrial giant which financed Hitler's Nazi party. He also served as Chairman of both the London Tin Corporation and Associated Electrical Industries.
Chandos entered Parliament as Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) for Aldershot in a wartime by-election in 1940 and was sworn of the Privy Council the same year. He entered Winston Churchill's war coalition as President of the Board of Trade in 1940, a post he held until 1941, and then served as Minister of State in the Middle East from 1941 to 1942 and as Minister of Production from 1942 to 1945. He was again President of the Board of Trade in Churchill's brief 1945 caretaker government. After the Conservatives' 1951 election victory, he was considered for the job of Chancellor of the Exchequer, but was seen as too linked to business and the City of London, so the job was given to Rab Butler. Instead he became Secretary of State for the Colonies, which he remained until 1954. The latter year he was elevated to the peerage as Viscount Chandos, of Aldershot in the County of Southampton.