Sir Geoffrey Le Mesurier Mander (6 March 1882 – 9 September 1962) was a Midland industrialist and chairman of

Mander Brothers Mander Brothers was a major employer in the city of Wolverhampton, in the English Midlands, a progressive company founded in 1773. In the 19th century the firm became the number one manufacturers of varnishes, paints and later printing inks in th ...

Ltd., paint and varnish manufacturers in

Wolverhampton Wolverhampton () is a city, metropolitan borough and administrative centre in the West Midlands, England. The population size has increased by 5.7%, from around 249,500 in 2011 to 263,700 in 2021. People from the city are called "Wulfrunians ...

, England, an art collector and

Liberal Liberal or liberalism may refer to: Politics * a supporter of liberalism ** Liberalism by country * an adherent of a Liberal Party * Liberalism (international relations) * Sexually liberal feminism * Social liberalism Arts, entertainment and m ...

parliamentarian.

Early career

He was the oldest son of (Samuel) Theodore Mander (of a

cadet branch In history and heraldry, a cadet branch consists of the male-line descendants of a monarch's or patriarch's younger sons ( cadets). In the ruling dynasties and noble families of much of Europe and Asia, the family's major assets— realm, tit ...

of the prominent

Mander family The Mander family has held for over 200 years a prominent position in the Midland counties of England, both in the family business and public life. In the early industrial revolution, the Mander family entered the vanguard of the expansion of ...

of Midland industrialists and public servants) and his wife, Flora St Clair Paint. Mander's younger brother was actor, playwright and film director

Miles Mander Miles Mander (born Lionel Henry Mander; 14 May 1888 – 8 February 1946), was an English character actor of the early Hollywood cinema, also a film director and producer, and a playwright and novelist. He was sometimes credited as Luther Mile ...

. He was educated at Harrow and

Trinity College, Cambridge Trinity College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Founded in 1546 by King Henry VIII, Trinity is one of the largest Cambridge colleges, with the largest financial endowment of any college at either Cambridge or Oxford. ...

, served in the Royal Flying Corps in

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, and was called to the bar at the

Inner Temple The Honourable Society of the Inner Temple, commonly known as the Inner Temple, is one of the four Inns of Court and is a professional associations for barristers and judges. To be called to the Bar and practise as a barrister in England and ...

(1921).

Politician

He entered the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. T ...

as the

Liberal Party The Liberal Party is any of many political parties around the world. The meaning of ''liberal'' varies around the world, ranging from liberal conservatism on the right to social liberalism on the left. __TOC__ Active liberal parties This is a li ...

Member of Parliament A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members o ...

(MP) for Wolverhampton East at the general election in May 1929. He was a Liberal specialist on foreign policy between the wars, and was one of the first to take a strong stand against Appeasement of the fascist dictators, and was a crusader on behalf of the

League of Nations The League of Nations (french: link=no, Société des Nations ) was the first worldwide intergovernmental organisation whose principal mission was to maintain world peace. It was founded on 10 January 1920 by the Paris Peace Conference that ...

. During

World War II 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 opposing ...

, he was Parliamentary Private Secretary to Sir

Archibald Sinclair Archibald Henry Macdonald Sinclair, 1st Viscount Thurso, (22 October 1890 – 15 June 1970), known as Sir Archibald Sinclair between 1912 and 1952, and often as Archie Sinclair, was a British politician and leader of the Liberal Party. Backgr ...

(later, first Viscount Thurso), the Secretary of State for Air. He won a reputation in Parliament for his determined use of

parliamentary question A question time in a parliament occurs when members of the parliament ask questions of government ministers (including the prime minister), which they are obliged to answer. It usually occurs daily while parliament is sitting, though it can be ca ...

s. For example, just over a month after the formal establishment of the

Peace Pledge Union The Peace Pledge Union (PPU) is a non-governmental organisation that promotes pacifism, based in the United Kingdom. Its members are signatories to the following pledge: "War is a crime against humanity. I renounce war, and am therefore determin ...

on 22 May 1936, he asked the first of numerous hostile questions about it on 25 June 1936. Wolverhampton East was one of the last urban constituencies which the Liberals managed to hold against both Labour Party and Conservative Party opposition up to 1945. Mander was expected to be nominated Chief Whip for the Liberal Party in the House of Commons, but he lost his seat at the

1945 general election The following elections occurred in the year 1945. Africa * 1945 South-West African legislative election Asia * 1945 Indian general election Australia * 1945 Fremantle by-election Europe * 1945 Albanian parliamentary election * 1945 Bulgarian ...

, in the post-war Labour landslide. Considering that Labour had now replaced the Liberals as the main representative of the radical tradition in British politics, he joined the Labour party in 1948, and subsequently served as a Labour member of the

Staffordshire County Council Staffordshire County Council is the top-tier local authority for the non-metropolitan county of Staffordshire, England. 62 councillors sit on Staffordshire County Council. Staffordshire operates a cabinet-style council In England, local auth ...

. Among many public offices, he was

High Sheriff of Staffordshire This is a list of the sheriffs and high sheriffs of Staffordshire. The sheriff is the oldest secular office under the Crown. The sheriff was the principal law enforcement officer in the county but over the centuries most of the responsibilities ass ...

(1921), a

county council A county council is the elected administrative body governing an area known as a county. This term has slightly different meanings in different countries. Ireland The county councils created under British rule in 1899 continue to exist in Irel ...

lor, justice of the peace, and was made a

Knight Bachelor The title of Knight Bachelor is the basic rank granted to a man who has been knighted by the monarch but not inducted as a member of one of the organised orders of chivalry; it is a part of the British honours system. Knights Bachelor are th ...

for public services in the

1945 New Year Honours The 1945 New Year Honours were appointments by many of the Commonwealth realms of King George VI to various orders and honours to reward and highlight good works by citizens of those countries. They were announced on 1 January 1945 for the Britis ...

shortly before his enforced retirement from Parliament.

Industrialist

He was chairman of Mander Brothers (established in 1773) for a generation, one of the principal local employers and a major manufacturer of paints, inks and varnishes in the British Empire. As an industrialist, he led many progressive initiatives in the field of labour relations and employment welfare between the Wars. Under his direction, Mander Brothers was the first British company to introduce the 40-hour week through an historic agreement signed and mediated by

Ernest Bevin Ernest Bevin (9 March 1881 – 14 April 1951) was a British statesman, trade union leader, and Labour Party politician. He co-founded and served as General Secretary of the powerful Transport and General Workers' Union in the years 1922–194 ...

, general secretary of the

Transport and General Workers' Union The Transport and General Workers' Union (TGWU or T&G) was one of the largest general trade unions in the United Kingdom and Ireland – where it was known as the Amalgamated Transport and General Workers' Union (ATGWU) to differentiate its ...

, in September 1931.

Art patron

He was an early conservationist. He offered to buy for the nation William Morris's Red House in London, if a suitable tenant could be found. He did present the family house,

Wightwick Manor The legacy of a family's passion for Victorian art and design, Wightwick Manor (pronounced "Wittick") is a Victorian manor house located on Wightwick Bank, Wolverhampton, West Midlands, England. Owned by the National Trust since 1937, the Mano ...

, in Staffordshire, with its outstanding collections of Victorian art and objects associated with

William Morris William Morris (24 March 1834 – 3 October 1896) was a British textile designer, poet, artist, novelist, architectural conservationist, printer, translator and socialist activist associated with the British Arts and Crafts Movement. He ...

, the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and the Arts and Crafts movement to the

National Trust The National Trust, formally the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, is a charity and membership organisation for heritage conservation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. In Scotland, there is a separate and ...

in 1937. It was the first country house to be so presented during the lifetime of its donor. His second wife, Rosalie Glynn Grylls, was a biographer with an interest in the writers and artists of the Romantic period and an early connoisseur of the

Pre-Raphaelite movement The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (later known as the Pre-Raphaelites) was a group of English painters, poets, and art critics, founded in 1848 by William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Michael Rossetti, Jame ...

. Her biographical subjects included

Mary Shelley Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (; ; 30 August 1797 – 1 February 1851) was an English novelist who wrote the Gothic novel '' Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus'' (1818), which is considered an early example of science fiction. She also ...

(1938),

Claire Clairmont Clara Mary Jane Clairmont (27 April 1798 – 19 March 1879), or Claire Clairmont as she was commonly known, was the stepsister of the writer Mary Shelley and the mother of Lord Byron's daughter Allegra. She is thought to be the subject of a poe ...

(1939),

Edward John Trelawny Edward John Trelawny (13 November 179213 August 1881) was a British biographer, novelist and adventurer who is best known for his friendship with the Romantic poets Percy Bysshe Shelley and Lord Byron. Trelawny was born in England to a family ...

(1950), William Godwin (1953),

Dante Gabriel Rossetti Gabriel Charles Dante Rossetti (12 May 1828 – 9 April 1882), generally known as Dante Gabriel Rossetti (), was an English poet, illustrator, painter, translator and member of the Rossetti family. He founded the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhoo ...

(1964),

Ivy Compton-Burnett Dame Ivy Compton-Burnett, (; 5 June 188427 August 1969) was an English novelist, published in the original editions as I. Compton-Burnett. She was awarded the 1955 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for her novel ''Mother and Son''. Her works co ...

(1971) and Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1980). Together Geoffrey and Rosalie Mander were influential in the overdue reassessment of the artists and writers of the Victorian period.

Personal life

Mander was married twice. His first marriage was to Rosalind Florence Caverhill. They had three children: * Mervyn Caverhill Mander * Mavis Flora Rosalind Mander * Elizabeth Brehaut Mander His second marriage was to Mary Rosalie Glynn Grylls. Their wedding took place in the House of Commons, where Liberal MP Edgar Granville served as best man. The couple had two children: * John Geoffrey Grylls Mander (1932-1978) * Anthea Loveday Veronica Mander (1945-2004); married

John Lahr John Henry Lahr (born July 12, 1941) is an American theater critic and writer. From 1992 to 2013, he was a staff writer and the senior drama critic at ''The New Yorker''. He has written more than twenty books related to theater. Lahr has been ca ...

in 1965.

References

*Sir Geoffrey Le Mesurier Mander (ed), ''The History of Mander Brothers'' (Wolverhampton. 1955) *C. Nicholas Mander, ''Varnished Leaves: a biography of the Mander Family of Wolverhampton, 1750-1950'' (Owlpen Press, 2004) *Patricia Pegg, ''A Very Private Heritage: the private papers of Samuel Theodore Mander, 1853-1900'' (Malvern, 1996) *Nicholas Mander, ''Last of the Midland Radicals; biography of Sir Geoffrey Mander, Liberal MP for Wolverhampton East, 1929-45'' in Journal of Liberal History, Issue 53, Winter 2006-07 *Geoffrey Mander M.P. "We were not all wrong - How the Labour and Liberal Parties (& also the anti-Munich Tories) strove, pre-war, for the policy of collective security against aggression - with adequate armaments to make that policy effective: the truth about the peace ballot: etc, etc." - (Victor Gollancz Ltd. 1944)

External links

*
"Sir Geoffrey Mander: the last of the Midland Radicals"
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mander, Geoffrey 1882 births 1962 deaths People from Wolverhampton People educated at Harrow School Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge Mander, Sir Geoffrey Liberal Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies English art collectors People educated at Summer Fields School UK MPs 1929–1931 UK MPs 1931–1935 UK MPs 1935–1945 Councillors in Staffordshire Labour Party (UK) councillors High Sheriffs of Staffordshire English justices of the peace Members of the Inner Temple