David Eccles, 1st Viscount Eccles
The Viscount Eccles | |
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![]() Portrait of Eccles by Walter Stoneman, 1953 | |
Paymaster General | |
In office 20 June 1970 – 5 June 1973 | |
Prime Minister | Edward Heath |
Preceded by | Harold Lever |
Succeeded by | Maurice Macmillan |
Minister for the Arts | |
In office 20 June 1970 – 5 June 1973 | |
Prime Minister | Edward Heath |
Preceded by | Jennie Lee |
Succeeded by | Norman St John-Stevas |
Minister of Education | |
In office 14 October 1959 – 13 July 1962 | |
Prime Minister | Harold Macmillan |
Preceded by | Geoffrey Lloyd |
Succeeded by | Edward Boyle |
In office 18 October 1954 – 13 January 1957 | |
Prime Minister | Anthony Eden |
Preceded by | Florence Horsbrugh |
Succeeded by | Quintin Hogg |
President of the Board of Trade | |
In office 13 January 1957 – 14 October 1959 | |
Prime Minister | Harold Macmillan |
Preceded by | Peter Thorneycroft |
Succeeded by | Reginald Maudling |
Minister of Works | |
In office 1 November 1951 – 18 October 1954 | |
Prime Minister | Winston Churchill |
Preceded by | George Brown |
Succeeded by | Nigel Birch |
Member of the House of Lords | |
Hereditary peerage 13 July 1962 – 24 February 1999 | |
Succeeded by | The 2nd Viscount Eccles |
Member of Parliament for Chippenham | |
In office 24 August 1943 – 13 July 1962 | |
Preceded by | Victor Cazalet |
Succeeded by | Daniel Awdry |
Personal details | |
Born | 18 September 1904 |
Died | 24 February 1999 | (aged 94)
Nationality | British |
Political party | Conservative |
Spouses | |
Children | John Eccles, 2nd Viscount Eccles Hon. Simon Eccles Selina Petty-FitzMaurice, Marchioness of Lansdowne |
Alma mater | New College, Oxford |
Occupation | Politician, businessman |
David McAdam Eccles, 1st Viscount Eccles CH KCVO PC (18 September 1904 – 24 February 1999), was an English Conservative politician.
Education and early career
[edit]Eccles was educated at Winchester College and New College, Oxford, where he obtained a second-class degree in PPE. He worked with the Central Mining Corporation in London and Johannesburg. During the Second World War he worked for the Ministry of Economic Warfare from 1939 to 1940 and for the Ministry of Production from 1942 to 1943 and was Economic Adviser to the British ambassadors at Lisbon and Madrid from 1940 to 1942.
Political career
[edit]Eccles was elected as Member of Parliament (MP) for Chippenham in a wartime by-election in 1943, a seat he held until 1962. He served in the Conservative administrations of Churchill, Eden and Macmillan respectively as Minister of Works from 1951 to 1954 (in which position he helped organise the 1953 Coronation and was appointed KCVO), as Minister of Education from 1954 to 1957 and again from 1959 to 1962 and as President of the Board of Trade from 1957 to 1959. Eccles was also President of the Board of Trade in January 1957.[1]
In 1962 he was raised to the peerage as Baron Eccles, of Chute in the County of Wiltshire, and in 1964 he was created Viscount Eccles, of Chute in the County of Wiltshire. Lord Eccles returned to the government in 1970 when Edward Heath appointed him Paymaster General and Minister for the Arts, a post he held until 1973. As Minister for the Arts he clashed with the Chairman of the Arts Council of Great Britain Arnold Goodman over the funding of controversial plays and exhibitions and introduced mandatory admission charges at public museums and galleries. Lord Eccles was made a Doctor of Science (DSc) in 1966 by Loughborough University.[2] He also received an Honorary Science Doctorate from the University of Bath in 1972.[3]
Personal life
[edit]Eccles married, firstly, the Hon. Sybil Frances Dawson (1904–1977), daughter of Bertrand Dawson, 1st Viscount Dawson of Penn, on 1 October 1929. They had three children:
- The Hon. John Dawson Eccles; later 2nd Viscount Eccles (born 1931).
- The Hon. Simon Dawson Eccles (born 1934).
- The Hon. Selina Eccles (born 1937); m. firstly Robin Andrew Duthac Carnegie (grandson of Charles Carnegie, 10th Earl of Southesk); m. secondly George Petty-FitzMaurice, 8th Marquess of Lansdowne; became The Marchioness of Lansdowne.
A collection of the couple's wartime letters were published under the title By Safe Hand: Letters of Sybil & David Eccles 1939-42 (Bodley Head, 1983).
Widowed in 1977, he married again, this time to book collector and philanthropist Mary Morley Crapo Hyde (1912–2003) on 26 September 1984.[4] He died in 1999 at the age of 94, at home of natural causes, leaving an estate of approximately £2.4 million.[5]
Styles and honours
[edit]- Mr David Eccles (1904–1943)
- Mr David Eccles MP (1943–1953)
- Sir David Eccles KCVO MP (1953–1962)
- The Rt. Hon. The Lord Eccles KCVO PC (1962–1964)
- The Rt. Hon. The Viscount Eccles KCVO PC (1964–1984)
- The Rt. Hon. The Viscount Eccles CH KCVO PC (1984–1999)
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Notes
[edit]- ^ List of Presidents/Secretaries of State (2007), Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform, London, UK, viewed 8 May 2008, "Welcome to nginx". Archived from the original on 19 July 2012. Retrieved 8 May 2008.
- ^ Honorary Graduates and University Medallists since 1966 (2008), Loughborough University, Leicestershire, UK, viewed 29 April 2008, http://www.lboro.ac.uk/service/publicity/degree_days/hon_grads_66to79.html
- ^ "Corporate Information". Archived from the original on 25 May 2016. Retrieved 23 February 2012.
- ^ "Mary Hyde Is Wed to Viscount Eccles". The New York Times. 27 September 1984. Retrieved 3 October 2022.
- ^ "The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. 2004. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/71965. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
- ^ "Eccles, Viscount (UK, 1964)".
References
[edit]- Mary, Viscountess Eccles: obituary, The Independent, 5 September 2003
- The Times House of Commons 1945. 1945.
- The Times House of Commons 1950. 1950.
- The Times House of Commons 1955. 1955.
External links
[edit]- 1904 births
- 1999 deaths
- Alumni of New College, Oxford
- British Secretaries of State for Education
- Conservative Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies
- Knights Commander of the Royal Victorian Order
- Members of the Order of the Companions of Honour
- Members of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom
- Ministers in the Eden government, 1955–1957
- Ministers in the Macmillan and Douglas-Home governments, 1957–1964
- Ministers in the third Churchill government, 1951–1955
- People educated at Winchester College
- Presidents of the Board of Trade
- UK MPs 1935–1945
- UK MPs 1945–1950
- UK MPs 1950–1951
- UK MPs 1951–1955
- UK MPs 1955–1959
- UK MPs 1959–1964
- UK MPs who were granted peerages
- United Kingdom Paymasters General
- Viscounts created by Elizabeth II