"1st Viscount Chandos" Oliver Lyttelton Hand Written Letter Dated 1943 For Sale

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.