File 071 - Lord Londonderry

Charles Stewart Henry Vane-Tempest-Stewart, 7th Marquess of Londonderry, was born on May 13, 1878, in London, England.

He was a British Conservative politician. He was educated at Eton College and the Royal Military College, Sandhurst. He was commissioned into the Royal Horse Guards in 1897 but left the army in 1906, when, as Viscount Castlereagh, he was elected Conservative Member of Parliament for Maidstone. In 1915, he succeeded his father as 7th Marquess. He joined the Air Council in 1919 as part of the post-war Coalition government (1920–1921). He resigned from the position in 1921 to join the government of Northern Ireland as Minister of Education, a position he held until 1926. In 1923, he was appointed Chancellor of Queen’s University of Belfast, a position he maintained for the rest of his life. He also served as Chancellor of Durham University, England. Returning to England in 1931, Londonderry was appointed Secretary of State for Air with a seat in the Cabinet. He visited Germany several times in the 1930s in an attempt to reach an understanding with Nazi Germany. These unsuccessful diplomatic visits damaged his credibility at home and overshadowed his real achievement overseeing the design and promotion of the Hurricane and Spitfire fighters, which proved vital in the Battle of Britain. In 1935, he was removed from the Air Ministry but retained in the Cabinet as Lord Privy Seal and Leader of the House of Lords.

In 1899, he married Hon. Edith Helen Chaplin (1879–1959). He died on February 10, 1949, in Mount Stewart, County Down, Northern Ireland.