The Right Honourable The Viscount Rothermere
1923 portrait
Member of theHouse of Lords
Lord Temporal
In office 26 November 1940 – 12 July 1978
Preceded by	Harold Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Rothermere
Succeeded by	Vere Harmsworth, 3rd Viscount Rothermere
Member of Parliament forIsle of Thanet
In office 15 November 1919 – 10 May 1929
Preceded by	Norman Craig
Succeeded by	Harold Balfour
Personal details
Born	(1898-05-29)29 May 1898
Died	12 July 1978(1978-07-12) (aged 80)
Nationality	British
Political party	Conservative
Spouses	Margaret Hunam Redhead ​ ​ (m. 1920; div. 1938)​ Ann Geraldine Mary Charteris ​ ​ (m. 1945; div. 1952)​ Mary Murchison ​ (m. 1966)​
Children	4, includingVere Harmsworth, 3rd Viscount Rothermere
Parent(s)	Harold Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Rothermere Mary Lilian Share
Education	Eton College
Occupation	Politician, publisher

Esmond Cecil Harmsworth, 2nd Viscount Rothermere (29 May 1898 – 12 July 1978), was a BritishConservative politician and press magnate.

Harmsworth was the third son ofHarold Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Rothermere, who had founded theDaily Mail in partnership with his brotherAlfred Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Northcliffe. He was educated atEton College and commissioned into theRoyal Marine Artillery inWorld War I. His two older brothers were both killed in action. Esmond served asaide-de-camp to theprime minister at theParis Peace Conference. In 1919, he was elected as aUnionistMember of Parliament for theIsle of Thanet, one of the youngest MPs ever. He served until 1929.

After 1922, theDaily Mail and General Trust company was created to control the newspapers that Lord Rothermere retained after Lord Northcliffe's death (The Times, for example, was sold). As his father dabbled in association with theNazis and a flirtation with becomingKing of Hungary, it fell to Harmsworth to manage the businesses. His father retired as chairman ofAssociated Newspapers in 1932 at the age of 64, and Harmsworth took over that role.^[1] He served as chairman until 1971, after which he assumed the titles of president and director of group finance, and chairman of Daily Mail & General Trust Ltd, the parent company, from 1938 until his death.^{[citation needed]}

He became a director ofThe Rank Organisation in 1962.^[2] Harmsworth also had a significant impact on the development ofMemorial University of Newfoundland (the family has had a long-standing interest in Newfoundland, having built a paper mill inGrand Falls before the outbreak of the First World War). The university's first residence inPaton College, known as Rothermere House, is named after the Viscount. Harmsworth was the first Chancellor of Memorial University and the benefactor who provided the funds to construct Rothermere House.

Lord Rothermere succeeded his father in the viscountcy in 1940. He married three times and had four children. His first marriage was to Margaret Hunnam Redhead (1897-1991), daughter of William Lancelot Redhead ofCarville Hall, Brentford, on 12 January 1920 (divorced 1938).^[3] They had three children:

• Lorna Peggy Vyvyan Harmsworth (1920–2014), who marriedNeill Cooper-Key MP (1907–1981), and had issue, two sons and two daughters; her younger and only surviving son was the first husband ofLady Mary-Gaye Curzon (mother by later marriages of actressIsabella Calthorpe and society beautyCressida Bonas).
• Esmé Mary Gabrielle Harmsworth (1922–2011), who marriedRowland Baring, Viscount Errington (later 3rdEarl of Cromer), and had issue, two sons and one daughter, before his death in 1991. In 1993, she married secondly, to Captain Reinier Gerrit Anton van der Woude, whose first wife had been Lady Penelope Herbert (1925–1990), a daughter of the6th Earl of Carnarvon.
• Vere Harmsworth, 3rd Viscount Rothermere (1925–1998)

He married, secondly,Ann Geraldine Mary O'Neill (née Charteris), widow ofShane O'Neill, 3rd Baron O'Neill, who had been killed in action in 1944 in Italy. She was the daughter of Captain Guy Lawrence Charteris (second son of the11th Earl of Wemyss) and Frances Lucy Tennant. They married on 28 June 1945 and divorced in 1952. She then married writerIan Fleming in 1952.^[4]

Lord Rothermere married, thirdly, Mary Murchison, daughter of Kenneth Murchison, on 28 March 1966, by whom he had a second son:^[5]

• Esmond Vyvyan Harmsworth (1967–2025), who moved toCambridge, Massachusetts, in 1993. He died in April 2025 while on holiday in Mauritius. He was 57.^[5]

Lord Rothermere died on 12 July 1978, aged 80, and was succeeded by his elder son,Vere Harmsworth.

• Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs

• Hansard 1803–2005:contributions in Parliament by the Viscount Rothermere

• 1898 births
• 1978 deaths
• British newspaper publishers (people)
• Harmsworth family
• Conservative Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies
• Chancellors of Memorial University of Newfoundland
• Royal Marines officers
• People educated at Eton College
• Viscounts Rothermere
• UK MPs 1918–1922
• UK MPs 1922–1923
• UK MPs 1923–1924
• UK MPs 1924–1929
• UK MPs who inherited peerages
• Royal Marines personnel of World War I
• Younger sons of viscounts

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