3rd Baron Aberconway Charles Melville MCLAREN

Eigenschaften

Ereignisse

Eltern

Notizen zu dieser Person

Lord Aberconway Shipbuilder with a passion for gardening who was drawn into anultra-secret act of appeasement Wednesday, 5 March 2003 Charles Aberconway was one of the last of the old-fashioned,autocratic yet patriarchal industrialists, a long-serving President ofthe Royal Horticultural Society and the witness who, albeit 60 yearslater, revealed the last, and most shameful and secret, acts ofappeasement, in August 1939. Charles Melville McLaren, industrialist: born 16 April 1913; director,English China Clays 1935-87, chairman 1963-84, president 1984-2003;called to the Bar, Middle Temple 1937; director, John Brown & Co1939-85, chairman 1953-78, president 1978-85; succeeded 1953 as thirdBaron Aberconway; President, Royal Horticultural Society 1961-84(Emeritus); married 1941 Deirdre Knewstub (one son, two daughters;marriage dissolved 1949), 1949 Ann Lindsay Bullard (née Aymer; oneson); died London 4 February 2003 Charles Aberconway was one of the last of the old-fashioned,autocratic yet patriarchal industrialists, a long-serving President ofthe Royal Horticultural Society and the witness who, albeit 60 yearslater, revealed the last, and most shameful and secret, acts ofappeasement, in August 1939. He was born Charles Melville McLaren in 1913. The McLaren family wereoriginally natives of Argyll but had moved to Edinburgh in the early19th century – his great-grandfather, a draper, was a leading MP,known as the "member for Scotland". Two of his sons, includingCharles, the first Baron, were Liberal MPs. Charles was also chairmanof John Brown, then the largest of all the many shipyards on the RiverClyde. He had further improved the family's fortunes by marrying LauraPochin, whose family owned English China Clays, the biggest concern ofits type in the world. His son, also Charles, who succeeded as the second Baron Aberconway,had married Christobel Macnaghten, one of the best-known andbest-loved society hostesses of her day. At Eton their son Charles wascaptain of the Oppidans (i.e. the non-scholars), took Mods and Greatsat New College, Oxford, and was called to the Bar in 1937, although henever practised and was called up almost immediately, passing arelatively quiet war as a lieutenant in the Royal Artillery and thenreturning to the family businesses. During the 30 years after he succeeded his father to the title asthird Baron in 1953, Aberconway became one of the best-knownindustrialists in Britain. Unlike his father, he always listened tothe arguments of those around him, but once his mind was made up hewas decisive to the point of autocracy – "I don't care what peoplethink of me," he is once alleged to have said. His strongest andlongest links were naturally with the two family companies. He was adirector of English China Clays for 52 years – and chairman for 21.But he was best-known as a director of John Brown from 1939 until1985, and above all as chairman for 25 years from 1953. Like every other shipbuilding firm in Britain, John Brown was plaguedby such seemingly interminable and intractable industrial disputesthat in 1965 Aberconway unsuccessfully offered the firm to HaroldWilson's government for a nominal £1, provided only that the new ownerkept the workforce intact, a typical example of his genuine concernfor his employees. Aberconway was proud of his inheritance and wassuccessful in his bid – rightly considered a rash one, due more topride than commercial common sense – to build the QE2, the last andbiggest liner ever to be built in Britain. The contract proved amillstone and in the early 1970s was completed only when his firm hadmerged into Upper Clyde Shipbuilders. As one of the business "great and good", Aberconway was also deputychairman of Sun Alliance and London Assurance, and a director of theNational Westminster Bank. Sensibly he left the board of WestlandAircraft after nearly 40 years on the board in 1985 just before thealmighty row which led to the resignation Michael Heseltine from theGovernment in early 1986. But Aberconway was even more famous as a figure in the horticulturalworld. Through his grandmother Laura Pochin, he inherited BodnantHouse, complete with a hundred acres of world-famous gardensoverlooking the North Wales coast. These had first been laid out byLaura's father in 1875 and had been given to the National Trust in1949 but Aberconway continued to live there and to take fullresponsibility for them. He made fortnightly weekend visits toBodnant, processing round the gardens in knickerbockers andaccompanied by his wife, the head gardener, Mr Puddle – and a suitablyattired butler. But he was not just a lordly overseer, for hepossessed a deep knowledge of plants and a passionate love ofgardening – he won many prizes for his camellias and rhododendrons. His knowledge and enthusiasm proved invaluable assets to along-serving and very active President of the Royal HorticulturalSociety – indeed Aberconway's only recorded intervention in the Houseof Lords came in 1980 when he objected to a proposed development of adisused airfield near the RHS's gardens at Wisley in Surrey. Among hisinnovations in his 23 years in office were the support of "cultivarregistration" – defining different species of plants – and his dynamicsupport of the Chelsea Flower Show. At the opening every year he wouldrepeat the – usually justified – mantra "I think I can say withoutfear of contradiction that this is the finest Chelsea Flower Showever". But he was no progressive, resisting demands for more womenmembers of the RHS council or for better access for wheelchairs andguide dogs. Nevertheless his gardening interests were not confined to Chelsea andBodnant. As Commissioner-General he was responsible for the firsturban garden festival, held in Liverpool in 1984, and was a directorof similar festivals held in other dilapidated cities –Stoke-on-Trent, Gateshead, Ebbw Vale and Glasgow: a city to which hewas naturally greatly attached. Aberconway's historical importance came to light only in 1999 when heshowed 38 pages of previously secret documents to Andrew Roberts, thebiographer of Lord Halifax – the "Holy Fox" – who was ForeignSecretary from 1937 to 1940. These demonstrated clearly that theChamberlain government was, in Roberts's words "willing to go furtherto appease Nazi Germany, in order to dissuade Hitler from invadingPoland, than was ever hitherto supposed". The shaming conspiracy inwhich Aberconway was a participant involved an ultra-secret meetingbetween seven British businessmen and Hermann Goering on the Balticisland of Sylt, a meeting unmentioned either by Halifax or in theForeign Office documents. The meeting was organised by Birger Dahlerus, a respectable Swedishcivil engineer who had become a trusted neutral intermediary betweenthe Nazis and the British government. Through his business contactsDahlerus had got to know Charles Spencer, a Conservative partyactivist and director of John Brown, who had arranged a secret dinnerfor him at a London club in early July 1939. At the dinner it wasagreed that "it would of course be best if an attempt were made tosolve the problem by negotiation before the killing started". The result was the meeting on Sylt between Goering and a seven-manBritish delegation led by Spencer which had official, if secret,backing from the British government. It was natural for him to bringsome of his colleagues from John Brown, who formed four of theseven-man delegation – including the young Aberconway. The delegationreiterated the official government line that Britain's guarantee toPoland was still valid, but they agreed to "give Germany financial andindustrial prosperity and the lebensraum she had been seeking . . . ifshe did not actually invade Poland". The businessmen were completely taken in by Goering and none more sothan the young Aberconway. He was a "jolly man . . . and hadconsiderable personal magnetism", Aberconway told Roberts. He was"vain but sincere – and we believed his genuineness. He never rantedor raved, but talked quietly throughout our talks . . . he smiledwhenever the context of the talks permitted." Like so many other secrets the talks became well known within Londonsociety. Asquith's daughter Lady Violet Bonham Carter, always astaunch supporter of Winston Churchill, said to Aberconway, "I hearyou went and met Goering before the war." He pointed out that themeeting had been approved by the Foreign Office and, althoughAberconway was the most junior member of the delegation and could notbe blamed, she interrupted, "Charles, how could you?" She never spoke to him again. Nicholas Faith

Quellenangaben

Datenbank

Titel	Eckhardt-Würz Wambach Eigenbrod Wolfgang Schilling
Beschreibung
Hochgeladen	2014-08-17 18:18:36.0
Einsender	Anke Eckhardt-Würz
E-Mail	ankewuerz@web.de
Zeige alle Personen dieser Datenbank

Herunterladen

Kommentare

Einen neuen Kommentar schreiben

Name
E-Mail
Webseite (optional)
Nachrichtentext

Um Missbrauch zu verhindern, lösen Sie bitte diese Aufgabe, indem Sie die Geburtsdaten aus beiden Einträgen eingeben.

Einen Kommentar schreiben.