Oliver Lyttelton, 1st Viscount Chandos

Oliver Lyttelton, 1st Viscount Chandos, KG, DSO, MC, PC (15 March 1893 – 21 January 1972) was a British businessman from the Lyttelton family who was brought into government during the Second World War, holding a number of ministerial posts.

The Right Honourable The Viscount Chandos KG DSO MC PC
President of the Board of Trade
In office 3 October 1940 – 29 June 1941
Monarch	George VI
Prime Minister	Winston Churchill
Preceded by	Andrew Rae Duncan
Succeeded by	Andrew Rae Duncan
In office 25 May 1945 – 26 July 1945
Monarch	George VI
Prime Minister	Winston Churchill
Preceded by	Hugh Dalton
Succeeded by	Hon. Sir Stafford Cripps
Secretary of State for the Colonies
In office 28 October 1951 – 28 July 1954
Monarch	George VI Elizabeth II
Prime Minister	Winston Churchill
Preceded by	James Griffiths
Succeeded by	Alan Lennox-Boyd
Personal details
Born	15 March 1893 Mayfair, London, UK
Died	21 January 1972 (aged 78) Marylebone, London, UK
Nationality	British
Political party	Conservative
Spouse(s)	Lady Moira Osborne (1892–1976)
Alma mater	Trinity College, Cambridge

Background, education and military career

Oliver Lyttelton (right) with Sir Miles Lampson at the British Embassy in Cairo in 1941.

Born in Mayfair, London, Lord Chandos was the son of the Rt. Hon. Alfred Lyttelton, younger son of George Lyttelton, 4th Baron Lyttelton. His mother was his father's second wife Edith, daughter of Archibald Balfour. He was educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge. He served in the Grenadier Guards in the First World War, where he met Winston Churchill, and was awarded the Distinguished Service Order and Military Cross.

From 1947 to 1955 he served as the first President of Farnborough Bowling Club, Hampshire, in his Aldershot parliamentary constituency.

Business career

According to the Dictionary of National Biography:[1]

In August 1920 Lyttelton was invited to join the British Metal Corporation, a firm established at the instigation of the British government with the long-term strategic objective of undermining Germany's domination of the metal trade and making the British Empire self-supporting in non-ferrous metals. After a brief apprenticeship Lyttelton served as general manager of the corporation and subsequently as managing director. He also became chairman of the London Tin Corporation and joined the boards of a number of foreign companies, including that of the German firm Metallgesellschaft. He became one of a small group of individuals who through their multiple, interlocking directorships, effectively controlled the global metal trade. . . . On the outbreak of war in September 1939 he was appointed controller of non-ferrous metals. He set about exploiting his extensive network of personal contacts and his intimate knowledge of the mining industry in order to secure for Britain vital supplies of metals at highly advantageous rates. His unconventional methods caused some anxiety at the Treasury, but over the course of the war they saved Britain a substantial amount of money.

After the Conservative Party left office in 1945, Lyttelton became the chairman of Associated Electrical Industries.

Political career

Chandos entered Parliament as Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) for Aldershot in a wartime by-election in 1940 and was sworn of the Privy Council the same year. He entered Winston Churchill's war coalition as President of the Board of Trade in 1940, a post he held until 1941, and then served as Minister-Resident for the Middle East from 1941 to 1942, and as Minister of Production from 1942 to 1945. He was again President of the Board of Trade in Churchill's brief 1945 caretaker government. After the Conservatives' 1951 election victory, he was considered for the job of Chancellor of the Exchequer, but was seen as too linked to business and the City of London, so the job was given to Rab Butler.[2] Instead he became Secretary of State for the Colonies, a position which he held until 1954. The latter year he was elevated to the peerage as Viscount Chandos, of Aldershot in the County of Southampton.

Family home

In 1948, the 5th Earl Nelson sold Trafalgar Park, Wiltshire, to John Osborne, 11th Duke of Leeds, whose brother-in-law Oliver Lyttelton, 1st Viscount Chandos, lived there while he was an MP. Eventually Lyttleton bought the estate and lived there until 1971, when Jeremy Pinckney bought the house.

Later career

After ending his career as an MP, Chandos returned to Associated Electrical Industries, and steered it to become a major British company. In 1961 he was invited to deliver the MacMillan Memorial Lecture to the Institution of Engineers and Shipbuilders in Scotland. He chose the subject "Jungle – or Cloister? – Some Thoughts on the Present Industrial Scene".[3]

National Theatre

In 1962, Chandos became the first chairman of the National Theatre, serving until 1971. He then served as president until his death. His parents had been active campaigners for its development, and the Lyttelton Theatre, part of the National's South Bank complex, was named after him.

During Laurence Olivier's tenure as director of the National, Chandos was a central figure in the controversy over a proposed production of Rolf Hochhuth's Soldiers. The production had been championed by Olivier's dramaturg, Kenneth Tynan. Though Olivier, a great admirer of Winston Churchill (who essentially is accused of assassinating Polish Prime Minister General Władysław Sikorski by Hochhuth) did not particularly like the play or its depiction of Churchill (whom Tynan wanted him to play), he backed his dramaturg. There was a potential problem with the Lord Chamberlain, who might not have licensed the play due to its controversial stand on Churchill. The National's board vetoed the production and Lord Chandos damned the play as a "grotesque and grievous libel".[4]

Order of the Garter

Interior of St John the Baptist, Hagley, with the Garter banners of the 1st Viscount Chandos and the 10th Viscount Cobham

Garter-encircled arms of Oliver Lyttelton, 1st Viscount Chandos, KG, as displayed on his Order of the Garter stall plate in St. George's Chapel, Windsor Castle - viz. Argent a chevron between three escallops sable, a cross moline gules for difference.

In 1970 he was made a Knight of the Garter. His Garter banner, which hung in St. George's Chapel in Windsor during his lifetime, is now on display in the church of St John the Baptist, Hagley.[5]

Marriage & children

Lord Chandos married Lady Moira Godolphin Osborne, a daughter of George Osborne, 10th Duke of Leeds on 30 January 1920. They had three sons and one daughter:

• Antony Alfred Lyttelton, 2nd Viscount Chandos (born 23 October 1920, died 28 November 1980)
• Hon Rosemary Lyttelton (born 30 May 1922, died 21 October 2003), married Anthony Chaplin, 3rd Viscount Chaplin in 1951.
• Lieutenant Julian Lyttelton (born 30 August 1923, killed in action in Italy on 11 October 1944 during World War II )
• Hon Nicholas Adrian Oliver Lyttelton (born 26 March 1937)

Lord Chandos died in Marylebone, London, in January 1972, aged 78, and was succeeded by his eldest son, Antony. Lady Chandos died in May 1976, aged 84.

References

St John the Baptist Church, Hagley, memorial to the 1st Viscount Chandos

St John the Baptist Church, Hagley, grave of Alfred Lyttelton, where also the 1st Viscount Chandos' ashes are interred.

1. Murphy, Philip. "Portrait of Oliver Lyttelton, first Viscount Chandos (1893–1972)". Artware Fine Art. Quotation from the Dictionary of National Biography. Retrieved 29 April 2020.
2. Howard 1987, p. 178-9
3. "Hugh Miller Macmillan". Macmillan Memorial Lectures. Institution of Engineers and Shipbuilders in Scotland. Archived from the original on 4 October 2018. Retrieved 29 January 2019.
4. Kastan, David Scott (2006). The Oxford Encyclopedia of British Literature, Volume 1; "The National Theatre". New York: Oxford University Press. p. 83. ISBN 978-0195169218.
5. "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 18 November 2015. Retrieved 17 November 2015.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)

Further reading

• Ball, Simon The Guardsmen: Harold Macmillan, Three Friends and the World They Made. Harper Perennial, London 2005, ISBN 978-0-00-653163-0.
• Howard, Anthony RAB: The Life of R. A. Butler. Jonathan Cape 1987 ISBN 978-0224018623.
• Murphy, Philip (January 2008). "Lyttelton, Oliver, first Viscount Chandos (1893–1972)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/31385. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)

External links

• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by the Viscount Chandos
• Newspaper clippings about Oliver Lyttelton, 1st Viscount Chandos in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBW