Somerset Struben de Chair DSC (22 August 1911 - 5 January 1995) was a British author, politician and poet.
Contents |
Younger son of Admiral Sir Dudley Rawson Stratford de Chair, KCB, KCMG, MVO. Married first, 8 October 1932, Thelma Grace Arbuthnot (1911–1974) by whom he had Rodney Somerset de Chair and Peter Dudley de Chair. His second wife, Carmen Appleton, gave him Rory de Chair and Somerset Carlo de Chair. Marriage dissolved in 1958, allowing Somerset to marry his third wife, a Mrs Margaret Patricia Manlove (née Field-Hart) who bore him Teresa Loraine Aphrodite de Chair (who married Sir Toby Clarke, 6th Baronet). That marriage was dissolved in 1974, and in the same year and at the age of sixty-three he married his fourth wife, then 39 years old, Lady Juliet Wentworth-Fitzwilliam, only child of Peter Wentworth-FitzWilliam, 8th Earl FitzWilliam, who had been married to his friend Victor Hervey, 6th Marquess of Bristol at the time of their initially adulterous relationship. Somerset and Lady Juliet had a daughter, Helena de Chair, who married Jacob Rees-Mogg.
He was Conservative MP for South West Norfolk between 1935-45, losing his seat by 53 votes. He was Member of Parliament (MP) for Paddington South 1950-51. He was one of the Conservatives who voted against the Government at the crucial Norway Debate in May 1940 which brought Winston Churchill into office.
He was educated at The King's School, Parramatta in New South Wales between 1923-30, before attending Balliol College, Oxford.
During World War Two, he was commissioned as a 2nd Lt with the Royal Horse Guards. He later served with 4th Cavalry Brigade, and was wounded.
He was a Parliamentary Private Secretary 1942-44.
He wrote historical nonfiction, a number of now largely forgotten novels, one play, three collections of poetry, as well as a number of works of autobiography.
De Chair was known for his extravagant taste and lived in a series of large country houses. He lived between 1944-9 at Chilham Castle and leased Blickling Hall from the Marquess of Lothian.[1] [2] He owned St Osyth's Priory in Essex from 1954 until his death in 1995 and also bought Bourne Park in Kent with his last wife, Lady Juliet Wentworth-Fitzwilliam.
Fiction: Enter Napoleon (1934), Red Tie in the Morning (1936), The Teetotalitarian State (1947), The Dome of the Rock (1948), The Story of a Lifetime (1954), Bring Back the Gods (1962), Friends, Romans, Concubines (1973), The Star of the Wind (1974), Legend of the Yellow River (1979.
Non-fiction: The Impending Storm (1930), Divided Europe (1931), The Golden Carpet (1943), The Silver Crescent (1943), A Mind on the March (1945),
Edited and translated: The First Crusade (1945), Napoleon's Memoirs (1945), Napoleon's Supper at Beaucaire (1945), Julius Caesar's Commentaries (1951), Napoleon on Napoleon (1991),
Edited: The Sea is Strong (1961), Getty on Getty (1989)
Autobiography: Buried Pleasure (1985), Morning Glory (1988), Die? I Thought I'd Laugh (1993),
Drama: Peter Public (1932),
Poetry collections: The Millennium (1949), Collected Verse (1970), Sounds of Summer (1992)
| Parliament of the United Kingdom | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Alan McLean |
Member of Parliament for South West Norfolk 1935 – 1945 |
Succeeded by Sidney Dye |
| Preceded by Ernest Augustus Taylor |
Member of Parliament for Paddington South 1950 – 1951 |
Succeeded by Robert Allan |