William Ormsby-Gore, 4th Baron Harlech
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William George Arthur Ormsby-Gore, 4th Baron Harlech KG GCMG PC (11 April 1885 – 14 February 1964), known until 1938 as William Ormsby-Gore, was a British Conservative politician and banker.
Harlech was the son of George Ralph Charles Ormsby-Gore, 3rd Baron Harlech, and Lady Margaret Ethel Gordon. He sat as Member of Parliament for Denbigh from 1910 to 1918 and for Stafford from 1918 until 1938 and served as Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies from 1922 to 1929 (with a brief interruption during the short-lived Labour government of 1924). He was British representative to the Permanent Mandates Commission of the League of Nations from 1921 to 1922. In 1927 he was admitted to the Privy Council. Harlech also held office in the National Government as Postmaster-General in 1931, as First Commissioner of Works from 1931 to 1936 and as Colonial Secretary between 1936 and 1938. In 1938 he succeeded his father as fourth Baron Harlech and entered the House of Lords. During the Second World War he was High Commissioner to South Africa from 1941 to 1944. After retiring from politics he served on the board of Midland Bank, owner of a banking house founded by his family. He also held the honorary post of Lord Lieutenant of Merionethshire between 1938 and 1957. In 1948 he was made a Knight of the Garter.
Lord Harlech married Lady Beatrice Edith Mildred Cecil, daughter of James Gascoyne-Cecil, 4th Marquess of Salisbury, in 1913. His eldest son Owen Gerard Cecil Ormsby-Gore predeceased him. He died in February 1964, aged 78, and was succeeded in the barony by his second son David, who followed him into politics and served as British Ambassador to the United States in the 1960s. Lady Harlech died in 1980.
[edit] References
- Kidd, Charles, Williamson, David (editors). Debrett's Peerage and Baronetage (1990 edition). New York: St Martin's Press, 1990.
- Leigh Rayment's Peerage Page
- www.thepeerage.com
