File 039 - Lord da la Warr

Herbrand Edward Dundonald Brassey Sackville, 9th Earl de la Warr, was born on June 20, 1900, in Battle, England.

He was a British politician. He was educated at Eton and Magdalen College, Oxford. In 1915, when his father, Gilbert Sackville, 8th Earl de la Warr, was killed in the First World War, he succeeded to the title as 9th Earl de la Warr. In 1921, De La Warr became the first hereditary peer to join the Labour Party, and, in 1924, he was one of the youngest ministers appointed Lord-in-Waiting in the first Labour government. He served as Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms and Under-Secretary of State for War from 1929 to 1930, as Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries from 1930 to 1931, and as a Lord-in-Waiting from 1929 to 1931. In 1938, he became President of the Board of Education, a post he kept until 1940 when he became First Commissioner of Works. He was a Member of the House of Lords from 1921 until January 1976. Apart from his career in national politics, De La Warr was Mayor of Bexhill-on-Sea (1932-1934) and a Justice of the Peace and Deputy Lieutenant for Sussex. In 1956, he was made a Knight Grand Cross, the Order of the British Empire.

In 1929, he married Diana Helena Leigh (1896–1966), and in 1968, he remarried Sylvia Margaret, Countess of Kilmuir Harrison (1903–1992). He died on March 28, 1976, in London, England.