Walter Guinness, 1st Baron Moyne

Walter Edward Guinness, 1st Baron Moyne (29 March 1880 - 6 November 1944) was a British politician.

Walter Edward Guinness was born in Dublin, Ireland and was the 3rd son of the 1st Earl of Iveagh.

From Eton he volunteered for service in the South African War, where he was wounded. In 1907 he was elected to Parliament as Conservative member for Bury St Edmunds, which he continued to represent until 1931. During World War I Guinness again served with distinction in the Suffolk Yeomanry in Egypt, and at Gallipoli. In the fighting around Passchendaele he was awarded the DSO in 1917 and a bar to it in 1918; rare for an elected politician. In 1922 he was appointed Under-Secretary of State for War, the first of several political appointments which culminated in his term of office as Minister of Agriculture, November 1925 - June 1929.

After the Conservative defeat in 1929 he retired from office and was created Baron Moyne of Bury St Edmunds in 1932.

During World War II he became Secretary of State for the Colonies and Leader of the House of Lords in 1941. In August 1942 he was appointed Deputy Minister of State in Cairo, and in January 1944 Minister Resident in the Middle East.

Assassination

On 6 November 1944 Moyne was assassinated in Cairo by two members of the Jewish terrorist group, known in Hebrew as Lehi (Fighters for the Freedom of Israel), named the Stern Gang by the British, who were opposed to the League of Nations' British Mandate/rule in Palestine.

Although the Lehi had targeted British Mandate personnel since its creation in 1940, Lord Moyne was the first high-profile British official to be successfully targeted by them. This was therefore the opening shot in the new Lehi campaign. Some wonder if this provocation was anything more than a rash mistake. Lord Moyne was an ally and close personal friend of then-Prime Minister Winston Churchill. But in the end the action hurt the group very little; the Conservatives fell from power that year. This led to increased resistance by the hardline Etzel (National Military Organization) of Menachem Begin, and even the moderate Hagana of David Ben-Gurion over the next four years, though often this was limited to illegal immigration in the latter case.

Lord Moyne was chosen mainly because he was the highest ranking British official within reach of the Lehi. Several claims have been made after the fact about Lord Moyne to justify his murder, but on examination most are disputed. He has been blamed for the Struma disaster though he was not stationed in the Middle East at the time. It is often claimed that he is to blame for the 1939 White Paper on Palestine, though he had nothing to do with its creation. He was also in no sense a leader, symbolic or otherwise, of anti-Zionism in British Politics. He had been Minister Resident in Cairo for one month prior to his murder in 1944. Accusations against him have also been made by Joel Brand who was sent by the Nazi leader Adolf Eichmann to the Middle East with a proposal to trade Jewish lives for British Military supplies which it was claimed would only be used against the Soviet Union. Lord Moyne has replied to this proposal, according to Brand's version, by saying: "What would I do with a milion Jews?". Brand's associations both with Eichmann and the Lehi raise some doubts about his credibility.

Moyne's murder was severely condemned by the Jewish establishment in Palestine, who began to co-operate with the British authorities in dealing with the Lehi and the Irgun; see The Hunting Season.

 

Preceded by: E.F.L. Wood	Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries 1925–1929	Followed by: Noel Buxton
Preceded by: The Lord Lloyd	Secretary of State for the Colonies 1941–1942	Followed by: Viscount Cranborne
Preceded by: The Lord Lloyd	Leader of the House of Lords 1941–1942	Followed by: Viscount Cranborne