David Montgomery, 2nd Viscount Montgomery of Alamein explained

Honorific-Prefix:The Right Honourable
The Viscount Montgomery
of Alamein
Office1:Member of the House of Lords
Status1:Lord Temporal
Term Label1:as a hereditary peer
Term Start1:24 March 1976
Term End1:11 November 1999
Predecessor1:The 1st Viscount Montgomery of Alamein
Successor1:Seat abolished
Term Label2:as an elected hereditary peer
Term Start2:27 June 2005
Term End2:23 July 2015[1]
1Blankname2:By-election
1Namedata2:27 June 2005
Predecessor2:The 16th Baroness Strange
Successor2:The 5th Baron Trevethin
Birth Date:18 August 1928
Profession:Politician, businessman
Relations:Bernard Montgomery (father)
Education:Winchester College

David Bernard Montgomery, 2nd Viscount Montgomery of Alamein, (18 August 1928 – 8 January 2020) was a British politician and businessman. He was the son of Bernard Montgomery.

Early life and education

Montgomery was the only child of Field Marshal The 1st Viscount Montgomery of Alamein, a senior military commander in the Second World War, and his wife Elizabeth Carver, née Hobart.[2] He had two older half brothers from his mother's previous marriage, John and Dick. Montgomery's mother died in 1937 while on holiday in Burnham-on-Sea after suffering from an infected insect bite which caused septicaemia following amputation of her leg.[3]

David attended Winchester College from May 1942 onwards, and his father, posted abroad from the middle of the year, arranged for his time in school holidays to be divided between his prep school headmaster and family friends, Major Thomas Reynolds and Mrs. Phyllis Reynolds, and Jocelyn, wife of David's half-brother John Carver, as well as strict instructions that "on no account" was the boy to visit his aged paternal grandmother, whom the then Sir Bernard Law Montgomery detested, in Inishowen, County Donegal, in Ulster.[4] Montgomery gained an engineering degree at Trinity College, Cambridge.

Career

Montgomery entered business, working for Shell, Yardley and several other companies, and he built close links with Latin America. He served as a patron and chairman of various Anglo-Latin American organisations, including the Anglo-Argentine Society, Canning House and the Hispanic and Luso Brazilian Council.

He succeeded to the viscountcy following his father's death in 1976 and originally sat as a Conservative in the House of Lords until 1999, when he and most other hereditary peers were removed from the House under the House of Lords Act 1999. He was returned to the Lords as a crossbencher in an election of hereditary cross-bench peers in 2005, following the death of Baroness Strange.

Montgomery was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1975 and a Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George (CMG) in 2000. He also received decorations from Germany, Belgium, Spain, Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Venezuela and Colombia. He co-wrote The Lonely Leader: Monty 1944–45 with Alistair Horne about his father in 1994, which documented his own early life as well as his father's.

Personal life

In 1953, The Hon. David Montgomery, as he was then, married Mary Connell. They divorced in 1967 after having a son and a daughter:[5]

He then married Tessa Browning, daughter of Daphne du Maurier and Lieutenant-General Sir Frederick Browning, a close colleague of his father.[2] Lord Montgomery of Alamein became Patron of Freedom Flame UK, in May 2014, in recognition of the lighting of a Torch of Unity at the D Day stone, Southsea, by his father, Field Marshal The 1st Viscount Montgomery of Alamein, on 13 September 1948.[6]

He died on 8 January 2020 at the age of 91.[7]

Arms

Crest:Issuant from a Crescent Argent an Arm embowed in Armour the hand grasping a broken Tilting Spear in bend sinister the Head pendent proper
Coronet:A coronet of a viscount
Escutcheon:Azure two Lions passant guardant between three Fleurs-de-lis two in chief and one in base and two Trefoils in fess all Or
Supporters:Dexter: a Knight in Chain Armour and Surcoat resting his exterior hand on his sword; Sinister: a Soldier in Battle Dress all proper
Motto:Gardez Bien (Guard well)

[8]

Book

Notes and References

  1. Retired under Section 1 of the House of Lords Reform Act 2014.
  2. Book: Peter W. Hammond. The Complete Peerage or a History of the House of Lords and All its Members From the Earliest Times, Volume XIV: Addenda & Corrigenda. Stroud, Gloucestershire, U.K.. Sutton Publishing. 1998. 775.
  3. Book: Heathcote, T. A.. The British field marshals, 1763-1997 : a biographical dictionary. Leo Cooper. 1999. 0-85052-696-5. Barnsley, South Yorkshire. 214. 52402430.
  4. Hamilton 1981, p561-2
  5. http://www.cracroftspeerage.co.uk/online/content/index815.htm Montgomery of Alamein, Viscount (UK, 1946)
  6. Web site: Montgomery Flame, Freedom Flame. dead. https://web.archive.org/web/20140603165558/http://www.montgomeryflame.co.uk/. 2014-06-03.
  7. Web site: MONTGOMERY - Deaths Announcements - Telegraph Announcements. announcements.telegraph.co.uk. 14 January 2020. https://web.archive.org/web/20200114003537/http://announcements.telegraph.co.uk/deaths/238707/montgomery. dead.
  8. http://www.cracroftspeerage.co.uk/montgomery1946.htm Montgomery of Alamein, Viscount (UK, 1946)