| The Right Honourable The Lord Ogmore PC | |
|---|---|
| |
| Member of Parliament for Croydon South | |
In office 1945–1950 | |
| Preceded by | Herbert Williams |
| Succeeded by | Constituency abolished |
| Constituency | Croydon South |
| Personal details | |
| Born | David Rees Rees-Williams 22 November 1903 Bridgend, Wales |
| Died | 30 August 1976 (aged 72) |
| Political party | Labour Party (until 1959) Liberal Party (1959–1976) |
| Spouse(s) | Alice Alexandra Constance Wills[1] |
| Children | 3, including Elizabeth |
David Rees Rees-Williams, 1st Baron Ogmore, PC, TD (22 November 1903 – 30 August 1976) was a British politician.
Life and career[]
Rees-Williams was born in Bridgend, Wales, the son of Jennet (née David) and David Reese Williams. He qualified as a solicitor in 1929. Commissioned into the 6th (Territorial Army) Battalion, Welch Regiment, he was promoted Captain in 1936 and Major in 1938, by which time his battalion had become a searchlight unit. He transferred to the Royal Artillery in 1940, when all searchlight units did so, and ended the Second World War as a Lieutenant-Colonel.
Rees-Williams was elected Labour Member of Parliament for Croydon South in 1945, defeating the incumbent MP, Sir Herbert Williams. In the government he was a minister in the Colonial Office, travelling to East Asia to consider the movements towards independence. His seat was redistributed at the end of the Parliament and he narrowly lost the successor seat at the 1950 general election and was raised to the peerage as Baron Ogmore, of Bridgend in the County of Glamorgan, on 10 July 1950.[2] He served as Minister of Civil Aviation in 1951 and was made a Privy Councillor the same year. Lord Ogmore was President of the London Welsh Trust, which runs the London Welsh Centre, Gray's Inn Road, from 1955 until 1959.[3]
Lord Ogmore joined the Liberal Party in 1959 and served as Liberal Party President, 1963–1964.
Lord Ogmore was married to Alice Alexandra Constance Wills.[4] He had three children. His daughter, Elizabeth Rees-Williams, married the actors Richard Harris and Sir Rex Harrison, the businessman Peter Aitken, and more recently Jonathan Aitken, the former Conservative MP. His grandsons are actors Jared Harris and Jamie Harris and director Damian Harris.
Honour[]
Foreign honour[]
Malaya : Honorary Commander of the Order of the Defender of the Realm (1959)[5]
References[]
- ↑ "D C O'Driscoll / Rees-Williams_(I)". dcodriscoll.pbworks.com. http://dcodriscoll.pbworks.com/w/page/23333135/Rees-Williams_(I). Retrieved 20 May 2015.
- ↑ "No. 38968". 14 July 1950. p. 3622. https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/38968/page/3622
- ↑ "Our Former Presidents: London Welsh Centre". London Welsh Centre website. London Welsh Centre. 2010. Archived from the original on 20 July 2011. https://web.archive.org/web/20110720025944/http://www.londonwelsh.org/archives/1796. Retrieved 4 February 2011.
- ↑ Europa Publications Limited (1974). The international who's who. Europa Publications. ISBN 9780900362729. https://books.google.ca/books?id=wsnwF5v_RO0C. Retrieved 20 May 2015.
- ↑ "Senarai Penuh Penerima Darjah Kebesaran, Bintang dan Pingat Persekutuan Tahun 1959.". http://www.istiadat.gov.my/v8/images/stories/1959.pdf.
External links[]
- Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by David Rees-Williams
- Portraits of David Rees-Williams at the National Portrait Gallery, London
The original article can be found at David Rees-Williams, 1st Baron Ogmore and the edit history here.