Victor Cazalet

Victor Cazalet (L) receiving Polish government documents in London from Stanislaw Grabski, May 24, 1943, six weeks before Cazalet died

Colonel Victor Alexander Cazalet MC (27 December 1896 – 4 July 1943) was a British Conservative Party Member of Parliament (MP).

Cazalet was commissioned into the Queen's Own West Kent Yeomanry in 1915 and reached the rank of Captain, winning the Military Cross in 1917. He was first elected at the 1924 general election, serving as MP for the Chippenham constituency in Wiltshire until his death. His sister, Thelma Cazalet-Keir was a noted feminist also and also a Conservative MP.

During the Spanish Civil War, he was a strong supporter of General Franco and the fascists, serving on the House of Commons 'Friends of National Spain' committee. However before World War II, he opposed, with Winston Churchill, the appeasement of Adolf Hitler by Neville Chamberlain's government.

He was killed in 1943 when his plane from Gibraltar to Britain crashed seconds after take off. The B-24 Liberator II LB-30 AL523 was also carrying the Polish General Władysław Sikorski; Sikorski and everyone else on board (but first pilot Eduard Prchal) — 16 in all — died in the crash.

Cazalet was the godfather of the actress Elizabeth Taylor.

Biography

• James, Robert Rhodes (1976). Victor Cazalet: a portrait. London: Hamilton. ISBN 0241894050. 

References

• Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs
  • Daily Telegraph [London] 23MAR2011.

External links

• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Victor Cazalet

Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by Alfred James Bonwick	Member of Parliament for Chippenham 1924 – 1943	Succeeded by David Eccles