John Adrian Tremayne Rodd, 3rd Baron Rennell (28 June 1935 – 9 December 2006) was a British naval officer, Scottish

rugby union Rugby union, commonly known simply as rugby, is a close-contact team sport that originated at Rugby School in the first half of the 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand. In it ...

player and businessman. He succeeded his uncle as 3rd

Baron Rennell Baron Rennell, of Rodd in the County of Hereford, is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created in 1933 for the diplomat Rennell Rodd, 1st Baron Rennell, Sir Rennell Rodd, previously List of Ambassadors from the United Kingdom t ...

in 1978, and sat on the

Conservative Party The Conservative Party is a name used by many political parties around the world. These political parties are generally right-wing though their exact ideologies can range from center-right to far-right. Political parties called The Conservative P ...

benches in the

House of Lords The House of Lords, also known as the House of Peers, is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Membership is by appointment, heredity or official function. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminste ...

Early years

John Adrian Tremayne Rodd was the younger son of Gustaf Guthrie Rennell Rodd, a Commander in the

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against ...

, and his wife, the former Yvonne Mary Marling, a singing teacher and co-author of ''Singing, the Physical Nature of the Vocal Organ''. His elder brother (by two years), Saul David Rennell Rodd, predeceased him. His father was the younger son of the diplomat and Conservative MP Sir Rennell Rodd, who was created

in 1933. His father's elder brother was 2nd Baron Rennell. His uncles and aunts also included the life peer the Baroness Emmet of Amberley, and, through marriage, the artist

Simon Elwes Lt. Col. Simon Edmund Vincent Paul Elwes, (29 June 1902 – 6 August 1975) was a British war artist and society portrait painter whose patrons included presidents, kings, queens, statesmen, sportsmen, prominent social figures and many members ...

and

Nancy Mitford Nancy Freeman-Mitford (28 November 1904 – 30 June 1973), known as Nancy Mitford, was an English novelist, biographer, and journalist. The eldest of the Mitford sisters, she was regarded as one of the "bright young things" on the London ...

. Rodd was evacuated to the United States during the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

. On his return, he was educated at

Ladycross School Ladycross was a Catholic preparatory school in Seaford, East Sussex. It was founded in 1891 in Briely Road, Bournemouth, and moved to a purpose-built school in Eastbourne Road, Seaford in 1909. More than 2,000 pupils attended it before its clo ...

and

Downside School Downside School is a co-educational Catholic independent boarding and day school in the English public school tradition for pupils aged 11 to 18. It is located between Bath, Frome, Wells and Bruton, and is attached to Downside Abbey. Original ...

Royal Navy

He followed his father in joining the

in 1952, and joined

Britannia Royal Naval College Britannia Royal Naval College (BRNC), commonly known as Dartmouth, is the naval academy of the United Kingdom and the initial officer training establishment of the Royal Navy. It is located on a hill overlooking the port of Dartmouth, Devon, En ...

in Dartmouth. He later served in the Home Fleet, the Mediterranean Fleet and the

Far East Fleet The Far East Fleet (also called the Far East Station) was a fleet of the Royal Navy which existed between 1952 and 1971. During the Second World War, the Eastern Fleet included many ships and personnel from other navies, including those of the ...

. He was the

boxing Boxing (also known as "Western boxing" or "pugilism") is a combat sport in which two people, usually wearing protective gloves and other protective equipment such as hand wraps and mouthguards, throw punches at each other for a predetermine ...

champion of the Home Fleet in 1958, and played rugby for Royal Navy,

Combined Services The Combined Services cricket team represents the British Armed Forces. The team played at first-class level in England for more than forty years in the mid-twentieth century. Their first first-class match was against Gentlemen of England at Lo ...

and United Services teams.

Rugby

As Tremayne Rodd, he won 14 caps as a scrum-half for

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a Anglo-Scottish border, border with England to the southeast ...

between 1958 and 1965, battling for his place with

Stan Coughtrie Stan Coughtrie was a Scottish international rugby union player, who played for and the Lions.Bath, p118 He also played for Edinburgh Academicals. He was on the 1959 British Lions tour to Australia and New Zealand In 1959, the British Lion ...

and

Alex Hastie Alexander James Hastie (29 July 1935 – 7 June 2010), also known as Alex Hastie or Eck Hastie was a Scotland international rugby union player. He played at Scrum-half; and was commonly linked with David Chisholm, his pairing at Fly-half for ...

. He was a member of the Scottish team that shared the Five Nations with Wales in

1964 Events January * January 1 – The Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland is dissolved. * January 5 - In the first meeting between leaders of the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches since the fifteenth century, Pope Paul VI and Patriarc ...

. He also played for the Barbarians. He played most of his rugby in England, for London Scottish, Plymouth, and the

Hampshire Hampshire (, ; abbreviated to Hants) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in western South East England on the coast of the English Channel. Home to two major English cities on its south coast, Southampton and Portsmouth, Hampshire ...

county team. In the 1960s he was a key player in the London Scottish rugby sevens team, winning the

Middlesex Sevens The Middlesex Sevens was a Rugby Sevens tournament held annually at Twickenham stadium in London, England until 2011. It was first held in 1926, and started by Dr J.A. Russell-Cargill, a London-based Scot.Bath, ''Scotland Rugby Miscellany'', p82 Th ...

tournament five times from 1960 to 1965. He started to scale back his rugby-playing activities in 1965 and his amateur rugby career was ended by a ban for working as a freelance journalist on a British Lions tour in 1966, writing for ''

The Observer ''The Observer'' is a British newspaper published on Sundays. It is a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' and '' The Guardian Weekly'', whose parent company Guardian Media Group Limited acquired it in 1993. First published in 1791, it is the ...

'' and ''

The Scotsman ''The Scotsman'' is a Scottish compact newspaper and daily news website headquartered in Edinburgh. First established as a radical political paper in 1817, it began daily publication in 1855 and remained a broadsheet until August 2004. Its pare ...

'', which led to a ruling by the

International Rugby Board World Rugby is the world governing body for the sport of rugby union. World Rugby organises the Rugby World Cup every four years, the sport's most recognised and most profitable competition. It also organises a number of other international ru ...

that he had become a professional.

Later years

Rodd left the

in 1962 with the rank of

lieutenant A lieutenant ( , ; abbreviated Lt., Lt, LT, Lieut and similar) is a commissioned officer rank in the armed forces of many nations. The meaning of lieutenant differs in different militaries (see comparative military ranks), but it is often ...

. Until 1966, he worked as a merchant banker at

Morgan Grenfell Morgan, Grenfell & Co. was a leading London-based investment bank regarded as one of the oldest and once most influential British merchant banks. It had its origins in a merchant banking business commenced by George Peabody. Junius Spencer Morgan ...

, where his uncle, the 2nd Baron Rennell, was a director. After leaving Morgan Grenfell, he became a director of Marks of Distinction, a company that created sporting medals and trophies and put on sporting and corporate promotional events. He left to run his own trophy and sporting promotions company, Tremayne Limited, from 1978 to 1984. In 1974, at the funeral of his cousin

Dominic Elwes Bede Evelyn Dominick Elwes (24 August 1931 – 5 September 1975) was an English portrait painter whose much publicised elopement with an heiress in 1957 created an international scandal. Early life Elwes (pronounced "El-wez") was born on 24 A ...

who had committed suicide, after a sententious speech by John Aspinall, Rennell infamously "went up and gave Aspinall the most useful punch in the face you have ever seen." 225, The Hustlers by Douglas Thomas/ref> He succeeded his uncle as 3rd Baron Rennell in 1978, and took the

Conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization in ...

whip in the

. Rodd actively participated in many sports including; rugby for several Parliamentary teams,

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by str ...

golf Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a course in as few strokes as possible. Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standardized playing area, and coping ...

bridge A bridge is a structure built to span a physical obstacle (such as a body of water, valley, road, or rail) without blocking the way underneath. It is constructed for the purpose of providing passage over the obstacle, which is usually somethi ...

backgammon Backgammon is a two-player board game played with counters and dice on tables boards. It is the most widespread Western member of the large family of tables games, whose ancestors date back nearly 5,000 years to the regions of Mesopotamia and Pe ...

and

chess Chess is a board game for two players, called White and Black, each controlling an army of chess pieces in their color, with the objective to checkmate the opponent's king. It is sometimes called international chess or Western chess to dist ...

. In 2000 he was the team leader for Vladimir Kramnik in London when he won the

World Chess Championship The World Chess Championship is played to determine the world champion in chess. The current world champion is Magnus Carlsen of Norway, who has held the title since 2013. The first event recognized as a world championship was the 1886 match ...

from

Garry Kasparov Garry Kimovich Kasparov (born 13 April 1963) is a Russian chess grandmaster, former World Chess Champion, writer, political activist and commentator. His peak rating of 2851, achieved in 1999, was the highest recorded until being surpassed by ...

. He also played in several backgammon world championships. In 1977 he married Phyllis Neill. The marriage produced a son and three daughters. Rodd died of

cancer Cancer is a group of diseases involving abnormal cell growth with the potential to invade or spread to other parts of the body. These contrast with benign tumors, which do not spread. Possible signs and symptoms include a lump, abnormal b ...

in London, aged 71. Upon his death the title passed to his son, James Rodd, 4th Baron Rennell.

Arms

References

Links

Obituary
''

The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publish ...

'', 23 December 2007
Obituary
''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' (f ...

'', 3 January 2007
Obituary
''

The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally. It was f ...

'', 13 January 2007
scrum.com statistics
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rodd, Tremayne Rennell, 3rd Baron 1935 births 2006 deaths Barbarian F.C. players Barons in the Peerage of the United Kingdom British male journalists Deaths from cancer in England Rennell, Tremayne Rodd, 3rd Baron People educated at Downside School People educated at Ladycross School Plymouth Albion R.F.C. players Royal Navy officers Rugby union scrum-halves Scotland international rugby union players Scottish rugby union players Royal Navy rugby union players London Scottish F.C. players Hampshire County RFU players Rennell