The Viscount Eccles | |
|---|---|
 Portrait of Eccles byWalter Stoneman, 1953 | |
| Paymaster General | |
| In office 20 June 1970 – 5 June 1973 | |
| Prime Minister | Edward Heath |
| Preceded by | Harold Lever |
| Succeeded by | Maurice Macmillan |
| Minister for the Arts | |
| In office 20 June 1970 – 5 June 1973 | |
| Prime Minister | Edward Heath |
| Preceded by | Jennie Lee |
| Succeeded by | Norman St John-Stevas |
| Minister of Education | |
| In office 14 October 1959 – 13 July 1962 | |
| Prime Minister | Harold Macmillan |
| Preceded by | Geoffrey Lloyd |
| Succeeded by | Edward Boyle |
| In office 18 October 1954 – 13 January 1957 | |
| Prime Minister | Anthony Eden |
| Preceded by | Florence Horsbrugh |
| Succeeded by | Quintin Hogg |
| President of the Board of Trade | |
| In office 13 January 1957 – 14 October 1959 | |
| Prime Minister | Harold Macmillan |
| Preceded by | Peter Thorneycroft |
| Succeeded by | Reginald Maudling |
| Minister of Works | |
| In office 1 November 1951 – 18 October 1954 | |
| Prime Minister | Winston Churchill |
| Preceded by | George Brown |
| Succeeded by | Nigel Birch |
| Member of theHouse of Lords | |
| Hereditary peerage 13 July 1962 – 24 February 1999 | |
| Succeeded by | The 2nd Viscount Eccles |
| Member of Parliament forChippenham | |
| In office 24 August 1943 – 13 July 1962 | |
| Preceded by | Victor Cazalet |
| Succeeded by | Daniel Awdry |
| Personal details | |
| Born | David McAdam Eccles (1904-09-18)18 September 1904 London, England |
| Died | 24 February 1999(1999-02-24) (aged 94) |
| Political party | Conservative |
| Spouses | |
| Children | John Eccles, 2nd Viscount Eccles Hon. Simon Eccles Selina Petty-FitzMaurice, Marchioness of Lansdowne |
| Alma mater | New College, Oxford |
| Occupation | Politician, businessman |
David McAdam Eccles, 1st Viscount EcclesCH KCVO PC (18 September 1904 – 24 February 1999), was an EnglishConservative politician and businessman.
Eccles was born in London.[1] He was educated atWinchester College andNew College, Oxford, where he obtained asecond-class degree inPPE.[1] He worked with the Central Mining Corporation in London andJohannesburg. During theSecond World War he worked for theMinistry of Economic Warfare from 1939 to 1940 and for theMinistry of Production from 1942 to 1943 and was Economic Adviser to the British ambassadors atLisbon andMadrid from 1940 to 1942.[1]
Eccles was elected asMember of Parliament (MP) forChippenham in a wartime by-election in 1943, a seat he held until 1962.[1] He served in the Conservative administrations ofChurchill,Eden andMacmillan respectively asMinister of Works from 1951 to 1954 (in which position he helped organise the1953 Coronation and was appointedKCVO), asMinister of Education from 1954 to 1957 and again from 1959 to 1962 and asPresident of the Board of Trade from 1957 to 1959. Eccles was also President of the Board of Trade in January 1957.[2]
In 1962 he was raised to the peerage asBaron Eccles, ofChute in the County of Wiltshire, and in 1964 he was createdViscount Eccles, of Chute in the County of Wiltshire. Lord Eccles returned to the government in 1970 whenEdward Heath appointed himPaymaster General andMinister for the Arts, a post he held until 1973. As Minister for the Arts he clashed with the Chairman of theArts Council of Great BritainArnold Goodman over the funding of controversial plays and exhibitions and introduced mandatory admission charges at public museums and galleries. Lord Eccles was made aDoctor of Science (DSc) in 1966 byLoughborough University.[3] He also received an Honorary Science Doctorate from theUniversity of Bath in 1972.[4]
Eccles married, firstly, the Hon. Sybil Frances Dawson (1904–1977), daughter ofBertrand Dawson, 1st Viscount Dawson of Penn, on 1 October 1929. They had three children:
A collection of the couple's wartime letters were published under the titleBy Safe Hand: Letters of Sybil & David Eccles 1939-42 (Bodley Head, 1983).
Widowed in 1977, he married again, this time to book collector and philanthropistMary Morley Crapo Hyde (1912–2003) on 26 September 1984.[5] In his later years, he lived inMontagu Square, London, and his wife's home at Four Oaks Farm, inBranchburg, New Jersey, United States; he died there on 24 February 1999, at the age of 94.[1][6] He left an estate of approximately £2.4 million.[1]
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| Parliament of the United Kingdom | ||
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| Preceded by | Member of Parliament forChippenham 1943–1962 | Succeeded by |
| Political offices | ||
| Preceded by | Paymaster General 1970–1973 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Minister for the Arts 1970–1973 | Succeeded by |
| Peerage of the United Kingdom | ||
| New creation | Viscount Eccles 1964–1999 | Succeeded by |
| Baron Eccles 1962–1999 | ||
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