Neil Primrose (politician)

Captain The Honourable Neil James Archibald Primrose PC, MC (14 December 1882 – 15 November 1917), was a British Liberal politician and soldier. The second son of Prime Minister Lord Rosebery, he represented Wisbech in parliament from 1910 to 1917 and served as Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in 1915 and as joint-Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury from 1916 to 1917. He died from wounds received in action in Palestine in 1917.

Background
Primrose was born at Dalmeny House, Dalmeny, Midlothian, the second son of Archibald Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1894 to 1895, by Hannah de Rothschild, daughter of Mayer Amschel de Rothschild. He was the brother of Harry Primrose, 6th Earl of Rosebery and writer Lady Sybil Grant. He was educated at Eton and Oxford and played No.1 for the Oxford Polo team in 1904 and 1905. While at Oxford he was also a keen steeple- chase rider.

Political career
Primrose entered the House of Commons at the December 1910 general election as Member of Parliament (MP) for Wisbech. In 1913 he became a member of the Anglo-American Peace Centenary Committee. In February 1915 he was appointed Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in H. H. Asquith's Liberal administration, but was not offered a post when the coalition government was formed in May of the same year. When David Lloyd George became prime minister in December 1916, Primrose returned to the government as joint-Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury (government chief whip) alongside Conservative Lord Edmund Talbot, a post he only held until March of the following year. In June 1917 he was sworn of the Privy Council.

Military career
Primrose was commissioned into the Royal Buckinghamshire Hussars in 1909. Promoted Captain in 1915, he was awarded the Military Cross in 1916. He died in November 1917 from wounds received in action at Gezer during the Sinai and Palestine Campaign while leading his squadron against Turkish positions on the Abu Shusheh ridge during the Third Battle of Gaza. He is buried in the Ramleh Commonwealth War Graves Commission Cemetery at Ramla, in Israel.

Family
Primrose married Lady Victoria Stanley, daughter of Edward Stanley, 17th Earl of Derby, on 7 April 1915. They had one daughter: Ruth Alice Hannah Mary Primrose (18 April 1916 – 1989), who married Charles Wood, 2nd Earl of Halifax, on 25 April 1936. Lady Victoria married as her second husband Malcolm Bullock, and had one daughter, Priscilla, by him. Lady Victoria died in a hunting accident in November 1927, aged 35.