David Eccles, 1st Viscount Eccles

For other people named David Eccles, see David Eccles (disambiguation).
The Right Honourable
The Viscount Eccles
CH KCVO PC

1953 photograph of Eccles by Stoneman.
Paymaster General and Minister for the Arts
In office
20 June 1970  5 June 1973
Prime Minister Edward Heath
Preceded by Harold Lever (Paymaster General)
Jennie Lee (Minister for the Arts)
Succeeded by Maurice Macmillan (Paymaster General)
Norman St John-Stevas (Minister for the Arts)
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 Parliament
for Chippenham
In office
24 August 1943  13 July 1962
Preceded by Victor Cazalet
Succeeded by Daniel Awdry
Personal details
Born (1904-09-18)18 September 1904
Died 24 February 1999(1999-02-24) (aged 94)
Nationality British
Political party Conservative
Spouse(s) The Hon. Sybil Dawson (1929-1977)
Mary, Viscountess Eccles (1984-death)
Children Selina Petty-FitzMaurice, Marchioness of Lansdowne
The Hon. Simon Eccles
The Hon. John Eccles; later 2nd Viscount Eccles
Alma mater New College, Oxford
Occupation Politician and Businessman
Religion Church of England

David McAdam Eccles, 1st Viscount Eccles CH KCVO PC (18 September 1904 24 February 1999) was an English Conservative politician.

Education and early career

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

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

Eccles married, firstly, the Hon. Sybil Frances Dawson (19041977), daughter of Bertrand Dawson, 1st Viscount Dawson of Penn, on 1 October 1929. They had three children:

Widowed, he married again, this time to the book collector and philanthropist Mary Morley Crapo Hyde (1912–2003) on 26 September 1984. He died at age 94 at home of natural causes leaving an estate of approximately £2.4 million.[4]

Styles and honours

Notes

  1. List of Presidents/Secretaries of State (2007), Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform, London, UK, viewed 8 May 2008, http://www.berr.gov.uk/about/about-berr/history/presidents-secretaries/page13935.html
  2. 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
  3. http://www.bath.ac.uk/ceremonies/hongrads/older.html
  4. http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/71965

References

Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by
Victor Cazalet
Member of Parliament for Chippenham
1943 1962
Succeeded by
Daniel Awdry
Political offices
Preceded by
Harold Lever
Paymaster General
1970 1973
Succeeded by
Maurice Macmillan
Preceded by
Jennie Lee
Minister for the Arts
1970 1973
Succeeded by
Norman St John-Stevas
Peerage of the United Kingdom
New creation Viscount Eccles
1964 1999
Succeeded by
John Dawson Eccles
Baron Eccles
1962 1999
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