Gerald Walter Erskine Loder, 1st Baron Wakehurst LLB JP DL (25 October 1861 – 30 April 1936) was a British barrister, businessman and Conservative politician. He is best remembered for developing the gardens at Wakehurst Place, Sussex.
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The fourth son of Sir Robert Loder, 1st Baronet, Member of Parliament for New Shoreham, Loder was educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge.[1] He became a barrister at the Inner Temple in 1888.
Loder was Conservative Member of Parliament for Brighton from 1889 to 1905. He was private secretary to the President of the Local Government Board (Charles Ritchie) from 1888 to 1892 and to Lord George Hamilton (the Secretary of State for India) from 1896 to 1901. He served briefly under Arthur Balfour as a Lord of the Treasury in 1905.
A keen gardener, Loder purchased the Wakehurst Place estate in 1903 and spent 33 years developing the gardens, which today cover some two square kilometres (500 acres) and are owned by the National Trust. He was President of the Royal Arboricultural Society from 1926 to 1927 and President of the Royal Horticultural Society from 1929 to 1931. He was a Director of the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway from 1896,[2] and served as its last Chairman in December 1922.[3] He was also a director of its successor, the Southern Railway and later Chairman from 1934 until he resigned the chair in December 1934.[4] In June 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:
Children of Gerald Loder and Lady Louise de Vere Beauclerk were:
Lord Wakehurst died in April 1936, aged 74, and was succeeded in the barony by his only son, John. The Loder Cup, New Zealand's oldest conservation award, is named after Lord Wakehurst.[5]
| Parliament of the United Kingdom | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Sir William Thackeray Marriott Sir William Tindal Robertson |
Member of Parliament for Brighton 1889 – 1905 With: Sir William Thackeray Marriott 1889–1893 Bruce Canning Vernon-Wentworth 1893–1905 |
Succeeded by Bruce Canning Vernon-Wentworth Ernest Amherst Villiers |
| Party political offices | ||
| Preceded by Sir Benjamin Stone |
Chairman of the National Union of Conservative and Constitutional Associations 1899 |
Succeeded by Lord Windsor |
| Business positions | ||
| Preceded by Charles C. Macrae |
Chairman of the Board of Directors of the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway December 1922 |
Company merged into Southern Railway |
| Preceded by Hon. Everard Baring |
Chairman of the Board of Director of the Southern Railway 1932 – 1934 |
Succeeded by Robert Holland-Martin |
| Peerage of the United Kingdom | ||
| New creation | Baron Wakehurst 1934 – 1936 |
Succeeded by John de Vere Loder |