OBITUARY

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 129, 27 November 1940, Page 9

OBITUARY

LORD ROTHERMERE

BRITISH PRESS MAGNATE

(Received November 27, 10 a.m.)

LONDON, November 26. The death of Lord Rothermete at Bermuda is announced.

Harold Sidney Harmsworth, first Viscount Rothermere, was bor# in 1868. He was the son of the late Alfred Harmsworth, Barrister oi the Middle Temple, and was a younger brother of the late Lord Northcliffe. In the World War he was for a time DirectorGeneral of the Army Clothing Department i and in Wit he was made Air Minister. On the death of Lord North-

cliffe, Lord Rothermere took over and administered the vast newspaper estate which had been created by the older man. He married, in 1893, Miss Mary Lilian Share, daughter of Mr. John Wade Share, and their only surviving son, the Hon. E. C. Harmsworth, was born in 1898 and has been chairman of Newspaper Proprietors' Association since 1934.

Lord Rothermere, who received a baronetcy in 1910, a barony in 1914, and was raised to viscount in 1919, was also a Privy Councillor. He has won wide attention for his benefactions. He endowed the King Edward" VII Chair of English Literature and the Vere Harmsworth Chair of Naval History at Cambridge University (in memory of his son Vere, a lieutenant in the R.N.V.R., who was killed in action in 1916), and the Harold Vyvyan Chair of American History at Oxford University (in memory of his eldest son, Harold Alfred Vyvyan, a captain in the Irish Guards, who died of wounds in 1918 after winning the Military Cross).

Latterly Lord Rothermere developed intense interest in Central European affairs. He made himself the champion of Hungarian claims for revision of the peace treaties, and in 1939 published a book entitled "My Campaign for Hungary." He also published "Warnings and Predictions" in the same year. For a long time he refused to believe that Hitler meant war and in July, 1938, describes him as "simple, unaffected, and obviously sincere," as "radiating good fellowship," and as having a great liking for the English, though sorely tried by them, "There is no man living whose promise, given in regard to something of real moraefit, I would sooner take," he wrote of Hitler in the "Daily Mail." In November last he was sued by the Viennese Princess Stef anie of Hohenlohe-Walden-burg-Schillingfuerst for breach of contract covering \> .yments to her, and it was'disclosed that he had promised to contribute £25,000 a year for five years towards the restoration of a monarchy in Hungary. It was alleged that he had sought to nominate his son to the throne of St. Stephen.