Victor Montagu

Coat of arms of the Earls of Sandwich

Alexander Victor Edward Paulet Montagu, 10th Earl of Sandwich (22 May 1906 – 25 February 1995), known as Viscount Hinchingbrooke from 1916 to 1962, as the Earl of Sandwich from 1962 to 1964 and as Victor Montagu from 1964 to 1995, was a British Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) and right-wing politician.

Early life

Montagu was the eldest son of George Montagu, 9th Earl of Sandwich, and his wife Alberta (née Sturges), and was educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge. In 1926, he joined the 5th (Huntingdonshire) Battalion of The Northamptonshire Regiment as a Lieutenant.

Political career

A member of the Conservatives, Montagu was Private Secretary to the Lord President of the Council, Stanley Baldwin, from 1932 to 1934 and Treasurer of the Junior Imperial League from 1934 to 1935.

He briefly served in France during World War II in 1940. A year later, he was elected MP for South Dorset, replacing Viscount Cranborne, who was called up to the House of Lords. A radical backbencher, Montagu set up the Tory Reform Committee in 1943, and was its founding chairman until a year later. It was at this time he wrote Essays in Tory Reform, a response to the party's moves toward liberalism.

Montagu was elected in the following five general elections, and continued as MP for South Dorset until 1962 when his father died. Montagu succeeded to his titles and could no longer sit in the Commons.

Lord Sandwich disclaimed his peerages in 1964, however, under the Peerage Act, which was passed a year earlier. He unsuccessfully stood as Conservative candidate at Accrington at the 1964 general election.[1] Although he did not sit in the House of Commons again, Montagu was President of the Anti-Common Market League from 1962–84; he also joined the Conservative Monday Club in 1964 and wrote The Conservative Dilemma in 1970.

Personal life

Montagu married firstly Rosemary Peto (1916-1998), on 27 July 1934. She was a goddaughter of Queen Maud of Norway and the only daughter of Major Ralph Peto. They had seven children but were divorced in 1958. Their youngest son, therapist Robert Montagu, has since alleged that his father abused him. [2]

He married secondly Lady Anne Holland-Martin (née Cavendish), the youngest daughter of Victor Cavendish, 9th Duke of Devonshire, and widow of Christopher Holland-Martin MP. Their marriage was annulled in 1965.

Montagu died in 1995, aged 88 and his eldest son, John, succeeded as the 11th Earl.

Source

  1. ↑ "Socialist Cotton Vote that Melted". The Times. 14 October 1964. p. 15.
  2. ↑ Sanderson, Elizabeth (23 August 2014). "My father, the Earl who raped me as a boy". Daily Mail.

External links

Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by
Viscount Cranborne		 Member of Parliament for South Dorset
1941–1962 		Succeeded by
Guy Barnett
Peerage of England
Preceded by
George Montagu		 Earl of Sandwich
(disclaimed)
1962–1964 		Succeeded by
John Montagu