George Villiers, 6th Earl of Clarendon

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

George Herbert Hyde Villiers, 6th Earl of Clarendon KG, PC (June 7, 1877December 13, 1955), known as Lord Hyde from 1877 to 1914, was a British Conservative politician. He served as Governor-General of the Union of South Africa from 1931 to 1937.

Clarendon was the only son of Edward Hyde Villiers, 5th Earl of Clarendon and his wife Lady Caroline Elizabeth Agar, daughter of James Agar, 3rd Earl of Normanton. George William Frederick Villiers, 4th Earl of Clarendon, three times Foreign Secretary, was his grandfather. Clarendon took his seat on the Conservative benches in the House of Lords on his father's death in 1914. When Andrew Bonar Law became Prime Minister in 1922 he appointed Clarendon Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms (government chief whip in the House of Lords), a position he also held under Stanley Baldwin until January 1924, and again from December 1924 to 1925. He then served as the first Under-Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs until 1927. In 1931 Clarendon was appointed Governor-General of South Africa, in which position he remained until 1937. He later held the court position of Lord Chamberlain of the Household between 1938 to 1952. He was admitted to the Privy Council in 1931 and made a Knight of the Garter in 1937.

Lord Clarendon married Adeline Verena Ishbel Cocks, daughter of Herbert Haldane Somers Cocks, in 1905. He died in December 1955, aged 78. His eldest son George Villiers, Lord Hyde, had been killed in a shooting accident in 1935 and he was succeeded in the earldom by his grandson George Frederick Laurence Hyde Villiers.


Political offices
Preceded by:
The Lord Colebrooke
Captain of the Gentlemen-at-Arms
1922–1924
Succeeded by:
Preceded by:
Captain of the Gentlemen-at-Arms
1924–1925
Succeeded by:
The Earl of Plymouth
Preceded by:
New office
Under-Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs
1925–1927
Succeeded by:
The Lord Lovat
Preceded by:
The Earl of Athlone
Governor-General of South Africa
1931–1937
Succeeded by:
Sir Patrick Duncan
Preceded by:
The Earl of Cromer
Lord Chamberlain
1938–1952
Succeeded by:
The Earl of Scarbrough
Other Offices
Preceded by:
Joseph Albert Pease
Chairman of the BBC Board of Governors
1927 - 1930
Succeeded by:
John Henry Whitley
Peerage of Great Britain
Preceded by:
Edward Villiers
Earl of Clarendon
1914–1955
Succeeded by:
George Villiers


Governors-General of the Union of South Africa
The Viscount Gladstone | The Viscount Buxton | HRH Prince Arthur of Connaught | The Earl of Athlone | The Earl of Clarendon | Sir Patrick Duncan | Nicolaas Jacobus de Wet | Gideon Brand van Zyl | Ernest George Jansen | Lucas Cornelius Steyn | Charles Robberts Swart

This biography of an earl in the peerage of Great Britain is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.