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Viscount Duff Cooper
Alfred Duff Cooper, 1st Viscount Norwich GCMG DSO PC (22 February 1890 - 1 January 1954), known as Duff Cooper, was a British Conservative Party politician, diplomat and author. He wrote six books,...mehr sehenAlfred Duff Cooper, 1st Viscount Norwich GCMG DSO PC (22 February 1890 - 1 January 1954), known as Duff Cooper, was a British Conservative Party politician, diplomat and author. He wrote six books, including an autobiography, Old Men Forget, a biography of the French diplomat Talleyrand, and the novel Operation Heartbreak (1950).
The only son of society doctor Sir Alfred Cooper and Lady Agnes Duff, daughter of James Duff, 5th Earl Fife, Duff Cooper was the youngest of their four children. He had royal connections: his maternal uncle, the first Duke of Fife, was married to Louise, Princess Royal. Cooper had a traditional gentleman’s upbringing of country estates, London society, Wixenford School, Eton College and New College, Oxford.
He entered the Foreign Service and was excluded from military service until 1917, when he joined the Grenadier Guards. He served with distinction as a lieutenant in the campaigns of 1918, winning a Distinguished Service Order (DSO) for conspicuous gallantry. He married Lady Diana Manners in 1919.
Returning to the Foreign Service, he became principal private secretary to two ministers and played a significant role in the Egyptian and Turkish crises in the early 1920s, before winning a seat in Parliament as a Conservative for Oldham in 1924. He gave one of the most acclaimed maiden speeches of the era and became a stalwart supporter of Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin, and a friend of Chancellor of the Exchequer, Winston Churchill. Cooper became Financial Secretary to the War Office in January, 1928, before losing his seat in the 1929 election when the Conservative Party lost power.
He fought and won the by-election for the constituency of Westminster St. George’s, Duff Cooper agreed to contest the election in what was regarded as a referendum on Baldwin’s leadership. He won the seat with a majority of 5,710, thus returning to Parliament and serving until 1945.
He died in 1954 at the age of 63.weniger sehen