Ronald McNeill, 1st Baron Cushendun

The Right Honourable The Lord Cushendun PC


Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
In office 19 October 1927 – 4 June 1929
Prime Minister	Stanley Baldwin
Preceded by	The Viscount Cecil of Chelwood
Succeeded by	Oswald Mosley
Financial Secretary to the Treasury
In office 1925–1927
Preceded by	Walter Guinness
Succeeded by	Arthur Samuel

Ronald John McNeill, 1st Baron Cushendun PC (30 April 1861 – 12 October 1934) was a British Conservative politician.

Background and education

McNeill was born in Ulster, the son of Edmund McNeill DL, JP and Sheriff of County Antrim, and his wife Mary (née Miller). He was educated at Harrow and Christ Church, Oxford, graduating in 1886. After being called to the bar in 1888, he worked as editor of The St James's Gazette (1900–04) as well as assistant editor of the Encyclopædia Britannica (1906–10).

Political career

Having unsuccessfully contested the seats of West Aberdeenshire (1906), Aberdeen South (1907 and Jan 1910), and Kirkcudbrightshire (Dec 1910), McNeill was elected as Unionist Member of Parliament for the St Augustine's division of Kent in 1911. Seven years later he became representative for Canterbury, and in 1922 was appointed Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, a post he held, with a short interval for the first Labour Government of 1924, until 1925.

After serving as Financial Secretary to the Treasury for two years, McNeill was in 1927 made Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster with a seat in the cabinet. The same year he was also sworn of the Privy Council and raised to the peerage as Baron Cushendun, of Cushendun in County of Antrim.^[1] Acting Foreign Secretary in 1928 and twice chief British representative to the League of Nations, Lord Cushendun signed the Kellogg-Briand Pact in August that year. He retired from office in 1929.

Cushendun and Glenmona House

Glenmona House today

From 1910 McNeill resided at Glenmona House in Cushendun, the coastal village in County Antrim from which he later took his title. He was burnt out of the house in 1922, having a replacement designed by Clough Williams-Ellis.^[2] The village also contains properties by Williams-Ellis built in memory of his Cornish wife, Maud, who died in 1925.

Family

Lord Cushendun married Elizabeth Maud Bolitho in 1884. They had three daughters; Esther Rose, Loveday Violet and Mary Morvenna Bolitho (who married Major Philip Le Grand Gribble). Elizabeth died in 1925. Lord Cushendun married Catherine Sydney Louisa Margesson as his second wife in 1930. She survived him, dying in 1939.^[3] Lord Cushendun died in Cushendun in October 1934, aged 73, when the barony became extinct.

References

↑ "No. 33327". The London Gazette. 8 November 1927. p. 7113.
↑ "Glenmona House, National Trust". National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty. Retrieved 20 July 2017.
↑ Cokayne, George (1982). The Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain, and the United Kingdom, Extant, Extinct, or Dormant. XIII. Gloucester, England: A. Sutton. p. 433. ISBN 0-904387-82-8.

External links

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Ronald McNeill, 1st Baron Cushendun

Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by Aretas Akers-Douglas	Member of Parliament for St Augustine's 1911 – 1918	Constituency abolished
Preceded by George Knox Anderson	Member of Parliament for Canterbury 1918–1927	Succeeded by William Wayland
Political offices
Preceded by Cecil Harmsworth	Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs 1922–1924	Succeeded by Arthur Ponsonby
Preceded by Arthur Ponsonby	Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs 1924–1925	Succeeded by Godfrey Locker-Lampson
Preceded by Hon. Walter Guinness	Financial Secretary to the Treasury 1925–1927	Succeeded by Arthur Samuel
Preceded by The Viscount Cecil of Chelwood	Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster 1927–1929	Succeeded by Sir Oswald Mosley, Bt
Peerage of the United Kingdom
New creation	Baron Cushendun 1927–1934	Extinct

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