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Arthur Lee, 1st Viscount Lee of Fareham

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The Right Honourable
The Viscount Lee of Fareham

GCB, GBE, GCSI, PC
Lord Lee of Fareham, 1903.
Personal details
Born
Arthur Hamilton Lee

(1868-11-08)8 November 1868
Bridport, Dorset, England
Died21 July 1947(1947-07-21) (aged 78)
Avening, Gloucestershire, England
Political partyConservatives
OccupationPolitician, patron of the arts

Arthur Hamilton Lee, 1st Viscount Lee of Fareham, GCB, GBE, GCSI, PC (8 November 1868 – 21 July 1947) was a British soldier, diplomat, politician and patron of the arts. After military postings and an assignment to the British Embassy in Washington, he entered politics and served as Minster of Agriculture and Fisheries and First Lord of the Admiralty following World War I. He donated Chequers to the nation as a country retreat for the Prime Minister, and founded the Courtauld Institute of Art.

Early life and military career

Lee's former residence in Washington, D.C.

After attending Cheltenham College, Lee entered the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, before being commissioned into the Royal Artillery as a second lieutenant on 17 February 1888.[1] He was promoted lieutenant on 18 February 1891.[2] After serving in China and on the Isle of Wight, on 18 August 1893 Lee became a professor at the Royal Military College of Canada,[3] with the local rank of captain.[4] He did not receive substantive promotion until 18 April 1898.[5] He became the British military attaché with the United States Army in Cuba during the Spanish-American War in 1898, where he became an honorary "Rough Rider" and met Theodore Roosevelt. On 28 January 1899 Lee was appointed military attaché at the British Embassy in Washington, with the temporary rank of Lieutenant Colonel (for the duration of his appointment).[6]

On 23 December 1899, Lee married Ruth (died 1966), daughter of New York banker John Godfrey Moore. Ruth was left a substantial inheritance after her father's death shortly before the wedding. He was promoted brevet major on 8 August 1900, and returned to regimental duty on 22 August 1900,[7] and retired from the army on 12 December 1900.[8]

Politics

Lee then embarked on a political career, he was elected Member of Parliament for Fareham in the 1900 general election while still a regular officer.[9] He served as Civil Lord of the Admiralty from 1903 to 1905.[10] He also continued military service during this period as a member of the Volunteer Force.[11]

At the beginning of World War I, Lee served as Lord Kitchener's personal commissioner to report on the Army Medical Services in France, with the rank of temporary colonel.[12] From October 1915 he served David Lloyd George at the Ministry of Munitions, and followed him to the War Office in 1916.[13] He was appointed Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath on 12 July.[14] On 8 June 1917, with Lloyd George now Prime Minister, Lee became Director-General of Food Production under Rowland Prothero as President of the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries, having now left the arrmy he was permitted to retain the honorary rank of colonel.[15] He was recognised for his work on 1 January 1918, being appointed Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire.[16] He was elevated to the peerage on 9 July that year as Baron Lee of Fareham, of Chequers in the County of Buckingham,[17] shortly before he resigned as Director-General of Food Production after disagreements with Prothero.

Lee joined the Cabinet and the Privy Council in August 1919 when he was appointed Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries, succeeding Prothero. He became First Lord of the Admiralty on 18 February 1921,[18] and was selected as a second British delegate to attend the Washington Naval Conference with Arthur Balfour later that year. He resigned with Lloyd George's government in 1922 and he was promoted to Viscount Lee of Fareham, of Bridport in the County of Dorset, on 9 December that year.[19] He went on to chair Royal Commissions on the civil service in India (1923–1924),[20] London cross river traffic (1926),[21] and police powers and procedure (1928).[22] He was also chair of the radium commission and of the committee on police pay and pensions (1925). He was appointed Knight Grand Commander of the Order of the Star of India on 1 January 1925,[23] and he was promoted Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath in the 1929 King's Birthday Honours.[24] He was also appointed Knight of Grace in the Venerable Order of Saint John on 20 June 1930.[25]

Chequers

Lee and his wife took on a long lease of Chequers, a country house and 1,000-acre (4.0 km2) estate in Buckinghamshire, in 1909. The Lees bought the property in 1912 after the owner died and began restoration. In 1917, they gave the estate, and the entire contents of the house which included a library, historical papers and manuscripts and a collection of Cromwellian portraits and artefacts, in trust to the nation to be used as official residence and retreat of British Prime Ministers, enabled by the Chequers Estate Act 1917. The Lees left the property in January 1921 and Lloyd George was the first Prime Minister to use the property.[26][27][28]

Patron of the arts and later life

After furnishing Chequers, Lee began a second collection. He gained the financial backing of Samuel Courtauld and Joseph Duveen, and established the Courtauld Institute of Art with the University of London. The Institute, the first to offer degrees in the history of art in Britain, opened in 1932 with William George Constable as its director at Lee's request. Also with Courtauld, he persuaded the University of London to accept the transfer of the Warburg Institute from Hamburg; it was loaned to him prior to its re-establishment in 1944. He also donated a silver collection and other objects to the Hart House in Canada in 1940.

Additionally, in the 1920s Lee was a trustee of the Wallace Collection and of the National Gallery. He served as chairman of the latter in 1931–2, and was a member of the Royal Fine Art Commission from 26 May 1926 until his death.[29]

Lee died in Avening, Gloucestershire, in 1947. Lee had no children and his viscountcy became extinct upon his death.

Bibliography

  • A Good Innings; The Private Papers of Viscount Lee of Fareham. London: J. Murray. 1974. ISBN 071952850X. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |authors= ignored (help)

References

  1. ^ "No. 25790". The London Gazette. 24 February 1888.
  2. ^ "No. 26139". The London Gazette. 27 February 1891.
  3. ^ "No. 26433". The London Gazette. 18 August 1893.
  4. ^ "No. 26436". The London Gazette. 29 August 1893.
  5. ^ "No. 26967". The London Gazette. 17 May 1898.
  6. ^ "No. 27064". The London Gazette. 21 March 1899.
  7. ^ "No. 27254". The London Gazette. 7 December 1900.
  8. ^ "No. 27255". The London Gazette. 11 December 1900.
  9. ^ "No. 27244". The London Gazette. 6 November 1900.
  10. ^ "No. 27606". The London Gazette. 16 October 1903.
  11. ^ "No. 27563". The London Gazette. 12 June 1903.
    "No. 27765". The London Gazette. 17 February 1905.
  12. ^ "No. 28956". The London Gazette (invalid |supp= (help)). 27 October 1914.
    "No. 28994". The London Gazette (invalid |supp= (help)). 1 December 1914.
  13. ^ "No. 29705". The London Gazette (invalid |supp= (help)). 11 August 1916.
  14. ^ "No. 29667". The London Gazette. 14 July 1916.
  15. ^ "No. 30118". The London Gazette (invalid |supp= (help)). 5 June 1917.
  16. ^ "No. 30460". The London Gazette (invalid |supp= (help)). 4 January 1918.
  17. ^ "No. 30787". The London Gazette. 9 July 1918.
  18. ^ "No. 32235". The London Gazette. 22 February 1921.
  19. ^ "No. 32776". The London Gazette. 12 December 1922.
  20. ^ "No. 32835". The London Gazette. 19 June 1923.
  21. ^ "No. 33186". The London Gazette. 28 May 1926.
  22. ^ "No. 33417". The London Gazette. 31 August 1928.
  23. ^ "No. 33007". The London Gazette (invalid |supp= (help)). 30 December 1924.
  24. ^ "No. 33501". The London Gazette (invalid |supp= (help)). 31 May 1929.
  25. ^ "No. 33618". The London Gazette. 24 June 1930.
  26. ^ "Lloyd Gearoge's New Home" (PDF). The New York Times. 20 October 1917. Retrieved 2009-08-16. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  27. ^ "People and Places: Chequers". Chilterns Conservation Board. Retrieved 2009-08-16.
  28. ^ "Home from home". BBC News Online. 18 July 2001. Retrieved 2009-08-16.
  29. ^ "No. 33166". The London Gazette. 28 May 1926.
    "No. 33727". The London Gazette. 19 June 1931.
    "No. 34255". The London Gazette. 2 March 1943.
    "No. 37572". The London Gazette (invalid |supp= (help)). 21 May 1946.
Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by Member of Parliament for Fareham
1900–1918 		Succeeded by
Political offices
Preceded byas President of the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries Minster of Agriculture and Fisheries
1919–1921 		Succeeded by
Preceded by First Lord of the Admiralty
1921–1922 		Succeeded by
Peerage of the United Kingdom
New creation Viscount Lee of Fareham
1922–1947 		Extinct
New creation Baron Lee of Fareham
1918–1947

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