Philip Cunliffe-Lister, 1st Earl of Swinton (1 May 1884 – 27 July 1972), known as Philip Lloyd-Greame until 1924 and as The Viscount Swinton between 1935 and 1955, was a prominent British Conservative politician from the 1920s until the 1950s. He was notable through the 1940s and 1950s as being firstly the Minister for Aviation, and then being on the steering committee for the Convention on International Civil Aviation. he retired from politics in 1955 and his status was raised to an earldom.
Background and early life
Beginning life as Philip Lloyd-Greame, he was the younger son of Lieutenant-Colonel Yarburgh George Lloyd-Greame (1840–1928) of Sewerby House, Bridlington, Yorkshire, by his wife Dora Letitia O'Brien, a daughter of the Right Reverend James Thomas O'Brien, Bishop of Ossory. His paternal grandfather was Yarburgh Gamaliel Lloyd, later Lloyd-Greame (1813–1890), who inherited Sewerby House by the will of his maternal uncle Yarburgh Greame, later Yarburgh (1782–1856).[1]
He joined the British Army in 1914, following the start of the First World War. He was mentioned in despatches and promoted to the rank of Major. In 1916, he was awarded the Military Cross (MC) while serving on the Western Front as a brigade major to the 124th Brigade of the 41st Division. During the war, Cunliffe-Lister spent time with Winston Churchill at his advanced HQ Lawrence Farm.[3] They later worked together in the Stanley Baldwin ministries of the 1920s, when Cunliffe-Lister served as a minister of state.[4] In 1917 he was appointed joint secretary to the Minister of National Service. He was noticed by David Lloyd George, who recruited the young man to be chairman of the Labour sub-committee of the war cabinet in Downing Street. At the end of the war, he stood as a Conservative candidate in the Coupon election of 1918.
Political career
He agreed to join the Coalition slate and was elected for Hendon. He would hold this seat until his elevation to the House of Lords in 1935. His strong intellect was immediately recognizable as a member of the National Expenditure select committee scrutinizing the controversial McKenna Duties and Homes Fit For Heroes, after which in 1920 he was knighted.[5]
He achieved his first ministerial post as Additional Under-Secretary Foreign Affairs in 1920 and took charge of the Overseas Trade Department in 1921 as Additional Parliamentary Secretary. In 1922 he became a Privy Counsellor[6] and was appointed President of the Board of Trade, an office he would hold with two breaks until 1931. This fast elevation to the Cabinet came about because of the collapse of the Lloyd George Coalition Government, which forced the new Prime Minister Bonar Law to promote many inexperienced MPs.
In 1923, Law was forced to resign due to failing health and there was discussion as to whether he would be succeeded by Stanley Baldwin or Lord Curzon. As the last survivor of Law's Cabinet, Lloyd-Greame would later assert that it was Cabinet hostility to Curzon that prevented his appointment as Prime Minister, when he returned from the Imperial Economic Council. On 27 November 1924 Lloyd-Greame changed his surname to Cunliffe-Lister so as to be able to inherit property from his wife's family. Raised to Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire in 1929.[7]
In 1931 Cunliffe-Lister was one of the Conservatives chosen to negotiate with the Labour Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald as the latter's government collapsed and was replaced by the multi-party National Government. As a sign of his prominence within the party, Cunliffe-Lister was one of just four Conservatives in the emergency Cabinet of 10, serving for the third and final time as President of the Board of Trade.
The National Government won a massive election victory in the 1931 general election but was internally divided on the question of protective tariffs. So as to balance the Cabinet Cunliffe-Lister was replaced at the Board of Trade by the supposed Free Trader Walter Runciman, and instead became Secretary of State for the Colonies, which he would hold until June 1935. When MacDonald retired as Prime Minister and was succeeded by Stanley Baldwin a Cabinet reshuffle took place in which Cunliffe-Lister became Secretary of State for Air. At the 1935 general election he did not contest his seat and was instead ennobled as Viscount Swinton,[8] retaining his ministerial office for the next three years into the premiership of Neville Chamberlain he took the strategic post of Secretary of State for Air responsible for Britain air defences in the lead up to war.
As Swinton was now in the House of Lords his hands were free to be Chairman of the UK Commercial Corporation responsible for boosting enterprise and output. So Chamberlain appointed the Chancellor of the Duchy of LancasterLord Winterton (an Irish peer who sat in the House of Commons) to speak for the Air Ministry in the Commons. This arrangement did not prove successful and in May 1938 there was a disastrous debate on air and it became clear to Chamberlain that the Secretary of State must sit in the House of Commons. Swinton was dismissed, his political career seemingly over.
Philip Lloyd-Greame married Mary Constance "Molly" Boynton (died 1974) on 5 September 1912.[2] She was the granddaughter of industrialist Samuel Cunliffe-Lister, 1st Baron Masham who had bought Swinton Park in 1882. In 1924, Philip and Molly Lloyd-Greame took the name of Cunliffe-Lister and moved to Swinton (sold in 1980 by the 2nd Earl and bought back 2000 by his nephew, Lord Masham and the latter's family).[13]
John Yarburgh Cunliffe-Lister (1913– †14 April 1943)[2]
S/Ldr The Hon Philip Ingram Cunliffe-Lister DSO RAF (1918–1956)[2]
Their elder son, John, was killed in the Second World War, leaving two sons of his own, of whom the elder grandson succeeded his grandfather as the 2nd Earl of Swinton, and was succeeded 2006 by his younger brother as the 3rd Earl of Swinton. The third Earl has two sons, both of whom are now married.[14]
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