Henry Mond, 2nd Baron Melchett
Template:Short description Template:Use dmy dates Script error: No such module "infobox".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".Script error: No such module "Check for conflicting parameters". Henry Ludwig Mond, 2nd Baron Melchett (10 May 1898 – 22 January 1949) was a British politician, industrialist and financier.
Early life and education
Henry Mond was born in London, the only son of Alfred Mond, 1st Baron Melchett and his wife Violet (née Goetze). He was educated at Winchester College.[1] In the First World War he was commissioned with the South Wales Borderers on 9 April 1915[2] and wounded in 1916.[3]
Business life
He then joined some of his father's businesses, becoming a director of Imperial Chemical Industries and serving as deputy chairman from 1940 to 1947. He was also a director of the Mond Nickel Company and Barclays Bank.[3]
Politics
He served as Member of Parliament for the Isle of Ely 1923-24 as a Liberal. He won against Unionist candidate Max Townley in the 1923 general election with a small majority of 467. In the same election his father, Sir Alfred Mond, Bt, lost his seat of Swansea West. He was unable to retain the Isle of Ely at the 1924 general election.
Like his father, he later became a Conservative. He was Conservative Member of Parliament for Liverpool East Toxteth from 1929 to 1930, when, on the death of his father, he succeeded to the barony becoming the 2nd Baron Melchett.[4] He then set about restoring the family finances and moved his interests away from politics to economics.[3]
Religion
Having been brought up in the Church of England, he reverted in the 1930s to his family's original Judaism and became a champion of Zionism, hoping that the Jews and Arabs could live harmoniously alongside each other. He advocated the evacuation of Jews from Germany to Palestine and supported the formation of an independent state of Palestine as part of the British Commonwealth. He was chairman of the Jewish Agency for Palestine and took an interest in the Maccabi Jewish youth organisation.[3]
Personal life
He married Amy Gwen Wilson (usually called Gwen, the daughter of Edward John Wilson, who lived in Johannesburg[5]), at Chelsea Register Office on 30 January 1920.[6] She was described as "a show stopping beauty and artist".[7] Their relationship began when she was living with writer Gilbert Cannan, a friend of D. H. Lawrence, and they initially formed a ménage à trois.[7]
From 1930 the couple lived in a London home, Mulberry House in Smith Square, Westminster. Paying homage to their early relationship, they commissioned a Script error: No such module "convert". high relief from the prominent artist Charles Sargeant Jagger called "Scandal", which they displayed in their living room.[7] This showed a naked couple in an intimate embrace watched by society ladies in a state of outrage. The sculpture and the Baron's relationship led to censure and outrage from their contemporaries.[7] In 2008 "Scandal" was bought for £106,000 by the Victoria and Albert Museum[7] where it is on display.[8]
Family
They had had two sons – the Honourable Derek John Henry Mond (18 October 1922 – 30 April 1945), Julian (9 January 1925 – 15 June 1973), and one daughter, the Honourable Karis Valerie Violet (26 July 1927 – 8 February 2006).[9] Derek was killed in a flying accident while he was serving with the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve in 1945.[10]
Mond bought and restored Colworth House on the edge of the Bedfordshire village of Sharnbrook and lived there for twelve years. During World War II he made the house available for the recuperation of American nurses[3] and to house Jewish refugees.Script error: No such module "Unsubst". He sold the house to Unilever in 1947 due to his wife's belief that moving to Florida would restore his health.Script error: No such module "Unsubst". He died at Miami Beach, Florida in 1949 aged 50 and the title passed to his surviving son Julian.[4] Mond was cremated in Islington.[11]
Publications
- Why the Crisis? (1931)
- Modern Money (1932)
- Thy Neighbour (1937)
- Hunting and Polo
Coat of arms
Images
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Mrs. Henry Mond by Glyn Philpot
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Mulberry House on Smith Square, London
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"Scandal" sculpture and fireplace from Mulberry House; by Charles Sargeant Jagger (Victoria and Albert Museum)
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See also
Notes
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- ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
- ↑ Script error: No such module "Citation/CS1".Script error: No such module "London Gazette util".
- ↑ a b c d e Greenaway, Frank (2004) 'Mond family (per. 1867-1973)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, [1], retrieved on 9 March 2007.
- ↑ a b Leigh Rayment's Peerage PageTemplate:Category handler[<span title="Script error: No such module "string".">usurped]Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters"., accessed 9 March 2007
- ↑ Amy Gwen Wilson on the Peerage website
- ↑ The Mond Legacy by Jean Goodman Weidenfeld & Nicolson 1982
- ↑ a b c d e Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
- ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
- ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
- ↑ CWGC entry for Lieutenant Derek John Henry Mond, RNVR
- ↑ The record on deceased online
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External links
- Pages with script errors
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- 1898 births
- 1949 deaths
- 20th-century English businesspeople
- 20th-century English Jews
- Barons Melchett
- Liberal Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies
- Conservative Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies
- UK MPs 1923–1924
- UK MPs 1929–1931
- UK MPs who inherited peerages
- British Ashkenazi Jews
- British Zionists
- English people of German-Jewish descent
- Converts to Judaism from Anglicanism
- People educated at Winchester College
- South Wales Borderers officers
- British Army personnel of World War I
- Mond family
- Jewish British politicians
- People from Sharnbrook
- Military personnel from London