Sunday, 8 October 2017
1699 Ivor Philipps
Constituency : Southampton 1906-22
Ivor was one of two Liberal victors in Southampton replacing a Tory and the Liberal Unionist John Simeon who had stepped down.
Ivor was the younger brother of the Pembrokeshire MP John Philipps. He was educated at Felstead School then joined the army. He served in India from 1883 to 1900 reaching the rank of Major then served in China during the Boxer Rebellion and won the DSO, He retired in 1903 and joined the Pembrokeshire Yeomanry. Ivor also had a business career and was chairman of the Baku Russian Petroleum Company among others .
Ivor served in the War Office at the start of World War One then was promoted to Brigadier-General. He returned to England for a year to serve as parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Munitions then went back to France as a Major-General with Lloyd George's patronage and the latter's son Gwilym as his aide-de-camp. Lloyd George was pushing the idea of an entirely Welsh division. He survived the Battle of the Somme, partly because he was relieved of his command for supposed lack of "push ". One staff officer described him as "ignorant, lacked experience and failed to inspire confidence".
Ivor received the coupon in 1918 and topped the poll by some margin in the election.
Ivor was appointed to the reunion committee at the meeting convened by George Lambert.
However he came fifth in 1922 and never stood again. He rejoiced at the Liberals' defeat under Lloyd George in 1929
Ivor devoted the rest of his life to business and rapidly improved the fortunes of Schweppes of which he was chairman. He also developed Ilford, a firm that manufactured photographic equipment.
Ivor was also an alderman and some time chairman of Pembrokeshire County Council.
Ivor was a tall man of striking appearance.
He died in 1940 aged 78.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment