Victor Warrender, 1st Baron Bruntisfield


Victor Alexander George Anthony Warrender, 1st Baron Bruntisfield, MC, known as Sir Victor Warrender, Bt, between 1917 and 1942, was a British Conservative politician. He held minor political office between 1928 and 1945, notably as Parliamentary and Financial Secretary to the Admiralty from 1940 to 1945 in Winston Churchill's war-time coalition government. In 1942 he was ennobled as Baron Bruntisfield.

Background and education

Warrender was the eldest son of Vice-Admiral Sir George Warrender, 7th Baronet, by Lady Ethel Maud Ashley-Cooper, daughter of Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 8th Earl of Shaftesbury. He was baptised with Queen Victoria as one of his godparents and was educated at Eton. His younger brother was the actor Harold Warrender. He served as a Lieutenant in the Grenadier Guards in the First World War and was awarded the Military Cross.

Political career

Warrender was elected Member of Parliament for Grantham in 1923, a seat he held until 1942. He was Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Under-Secretary of State for India, Lord Winterton, from 1924 to 1928 and entered the government as an Assistant Government Whip under Stanley Baldwin in 1928, a post he held until the government fell in 1929. He was appointed a Lord of the Treasury in 1931 under Ramsay MacDonald, was promoted to Vice-Chamberlain of the Household in 1932 and to Comptroller of the Household in May 1935.
After Baldwin became prime minister for the third time in June 1935, Warrender was made Parliamentary and Financial Secretary to the Admiralty. Then in November 1935 he exchanged this office for that of Financial Secretary to the War Office. He continued in this post when Neville Chamberlain became prime minister in 1937. When Chamberlain reshuffled his government in early April 1940, Warrender once again became Parliamentary and Financial Secretary to the Admiralty. He retained this office when Winston Churchill became prime minister in May 1940, and continued in it until Churchill resigned in July 1945. On 10 March 1942 Warrender was elevated to the peerage as Baron Bruntisfield, of Boroughmuir in the City of Edinburgh.

Family

Lord Bruntisfield married Dorothy Rawson, daughter of Col Richard Hamilton Rawson, MP for Reigate, on 1 June 1920. They had three children:
Lord and Lady Bruntisfield were divorced in 1945. Lady Bruntisfield was later invested as an Officer, Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem. She died in July 1975. Lord Bruntisfield married secondly, Tania, daughter of Dr Michael Kolin, on 22 June 1948. They had two children:
Lord Bruntisfield died in January 1993, aged 93, and was succeeded by his eldest son, John. Lady Bruntisfield died in June 2007.