(Arthur) Hugh (Elsdale) Molson, Baron Molson PC (29 June 1903 - 13 October 1991) was a British Conservative politician.
Born in Chelmsford, Essex, the only surviving son of Major John Elsdale Molson, Member of Parliament for Gainsborough from 1918–23, and Mary Leeson, he was educated at the Royal Naval College, Osborne and Dartmouth, at Lancing, and New College, Oxford. He was President of the Oxford Union in 1925. He became a Barrister-at-Law at the Inner Temple in 1931. He worked as Political Secretary of the Associated Chambers of Commerce of India from 1926-29.
During World War II he served with 36 Searchlight Regiment from 1939–41, and was Staff Captain 11 AA, Division from 1941-42.
He was unsuccessful Conservative candidate in Aberdare in 1929, and sat as Member of Parliament (MP) for Doncaster from 1931–35 and for High Peak, Derbyshire from 1939-61. He held Ministerial office as Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Works from 1951–53, Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation from November 1953-January 1957, and as Minister of Works from 1957-October 1959. He was a Member of the Monckton Commission on Rhodesia and Nyasaland in 1960, and Chairman of the Commission of Privy Counsellors on the dispute between Buganda and Bunyoro in 1962.
He was appointed a Privy Counsellor in 1956, and was created a Life Peer in 1961 as Baron Molson, of High Peak in the County of Derbyshire.
In later life he was Chairman (1968–71) and President (1971–80) of the Council for the Protection of Rural England. He died in Westminster in 1991 aged 88.
At Lancing he was a contemporary and close friend of Evelyn Waugh, and known as "Luncher". To the young Waugh he represented a figure of louche daring, as evidenced by many suggestive but mostly inexplicit references in his published Letters and Diaries. They were less close from Oxford onwards.
| Parliament of the United Kingdom | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Wilfred Paling |
Member of Parliament for Doncaster 1931–1935 |
Succeeded by Alfred Short |
| Preceded by Alfred Joseph Law |
Member of Parliament for High Peak 1939–1961 |
Succeeded by David Walder |
| Political offices | ||
| Preceded by John Profumo |
Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport 1953–1957 |
Succeeded by Richard Nugent |
| Preceded by Patrick George Thomas Buchan-Hepburn |
Minister of Works 1957–1959 |
Succeeded by John Hope, 1st Baron Glendevon |