Gerald Loder, 1st Baron Wakehurst
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Gerald Walter Erskine Loder, 1st Baron Wakehurst LLB JP DL (25 October 1861 - 30 April 1936) was a British politician.
The fourth son of Sir Robert Loder Bt, Member of Parliament for New Shoreham, he was educated at Eton and at Trinity College, Cambridge. He became a barrister at the Inner Temple in 1888.
He was Conservative Member of Parliament for Brighton from 1889-1905. He was Private Secretary to the President of the Local Government Board (Charles Thomson Ritchie) from 1888-1892, and to Lord George Hamilton (Secretary of State for India), 1896-1901. He was briefly a Junior Lord of the Treasury in 1905.
A keen gardener, he purchased the Wakehurst Place estate in 1903 and spent 33 years developing the gardens, which today cover some 2 square kilometres (500 acres) and are owned by the National Trust. He was President of the Royal Arboricultural Society from 1926-1927 and President of the Royal Horticultural Society from 1929-1931. He was a Director and later Chairman of the Southern Railway. In 1934 he was raised to the peerage as Baron Wakehurst, of Ardingly in the County of Sussex.
Lord Wakehurst married Lady Louise de Vere Beauclerk, eldest daughter of the 10th Duke of St Albans, in 1890. The couple had one son and four daughters. Lord Wakehurst died in April 1936, aged 71, and was succeeded in the barony by his only son John de Vere Loder.
| Parliament of the United Kingdom | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Sir William Thackeray Marriott Sir William Tindal Robertson |
Member of Parliament for Brighton with Sir William Thackeray Marriott 1889–1893 Bruce Canning Vernon-Wentworth 1893–1905 1889–1905 |
Succeeded by Bruce Canning Vernon-Wentworth Ernest Amherst Villiers |
| Peerage of the United Kingdom | ||
| Preceded by New creation |
Baron Wakehurst 1934–1936 |
Succeeded by John de Vere Loder |
