When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.
Up for sale the "1st Viscount Chandos" Oliver Lyttelton Hand Written Letter Dated 1943.
ES-608A
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. 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. Chandos was managing director of British Metal
Corporation, at a time when it was a major shareholder in
"Metallgesellschaft A.G." a German Industrial giant which financed
Hitler's Nazi party. He also served as Chairman of both the London Tin
Corporation and Associated Electrical
Industries. 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 of State in 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.[1] 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.