David ormsby gore biography

David Ormsby-Gore was born in London on 20 May 1918, the second son of William George Arthur Ormsby-Gore (1885-1964), fourth Baron Harlech, landowner and politician, and his wife Lady Beatrice Edith Mildred (née Gascoigne-Cecil, 1891-1980), a daughter of the fourth Marquess of Salisbury. His older brother and the barony of Harlech's heir presumptive, Owen Gerard Cecil Ormsby-Gore (1916-1935) died in a car crash, the first of several lifechanging events involving motor vehicles. Despite a traditional elite education of Eton College, New College, Oxford, and the British Army, Ormsby-Gore's links with Wales were more than just a Welsh title. The Ormsby-Gore family were historic landowners of the Brogyntyn Estate near Oswestry and Glyn Cywarch near Talsarnau, Merionethshire, and had donated their significant country house library, that included rare manuscripts, to the National Library of Wales in the 1930s. They were a family rooted in the Marches and north-west Wales that pursued political careers at Westminster.

Through London connections, in 1938 David Ormsby-Gore had met John Kennedy, the second son of the United States of America's new ambassador to London. Thus

5th Baron Harlech, Member of Parliament and Ambassador to the United States

See also: David Gore (disambiguation)

William David Ormsby-Gore, 5th Baron HarlechKCMG PC DL (20 May 1918 – 26 January 1985), known as David Ormsby-Gore until June 1961 and as Sir David Ormsby-Gore from then until February 1964, was a British diplomat and Conservative politician.

Early life

William David Ormsby-Gore was born into an Anglo-Irish aristocratic family on 20 May 1918 in Westminster, London, the second son of William Ormsby-Gore, 4th Baron Harlech, a Conservative politician, and Lady Beatrice Edith Mildred Gascoyne-Cecil. His maternal great-grandfather was British Prime Minister The 3rd Marquess of Salisbury. He was educated a

Born in London, 11 April 1885, son of George Ralph Charles Ormsby-Gore (who became 3rd Baron Harlech in 1904) and Lady Margaret Ethel (née Gordon). The family home was Brogyntyn, near Oswestry, Salop. He was educated at Eton and Oxford and in 1913 he married Lady Beatrice Cecil, a member of a prominent Conservative family.

In 1910 he was elected M.P. for the Borough of Denbigh by only eight votes but in 1918 he moved to a safer seat in Stafford and was a M.P. there until 1938 when he succeeded his father to the House of Lords. He became an expert on the Empire colonies and was Colonial Under-Secretary from 1922 until 1929 apart from the short period when Labour was in power in 1924. In that year he headed the Commission that visited East and Central Africa. He was a member of the Cabinet, 1931-38, and in 1936 he was appointed Colonial Secretary, for which post his extensive experience in the field was invaluable. However, one of his chief political enemies, Neville Chamberlain, became Prime Minister in 1937 and the following year he resigned in bitter circumstances. He opposed the foreign policies of Chamberlain and he was a cons

The Right Honourable

The Lord Harlech

KCMG PC DL

William David Ormsby-Gore