BRITISH STATESMAN

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23693, 28 December 1938, Page 7

BRITISH STATESMAN

DEATH OF LORD SELSDON ' WAR WORK FOR COUNTRY LONDON, Dec. 25. The death has occurred of Lord Selsdon. William Mitchell-Thomson, later Lord Selsdon, British statesman, was born at Edinburgh in April, 1877, the son of Sir M. Mitchell-Thomson, Bart., at one time Provost of Edinburgh. He was educated at Winchester. Balliol College, Oxford, and Edinburgh University, where he took his LL.B. degree with distinction. In 1902 he became a member of the Scottish Bar, but later took up business, and for some years travelled in many parts of the world, including Siberia, Manchuria and Korea. In 1906 he was elected Conservative and Tariff Reform M.P. for North-west Lanark. At succeeding elections he was returned for North Down, the Maryhill division of Glasgow and South Croydon. At his father’s death in 1918 he succeeded to the baronetcy. During the war he was Director of Restriction of Enemy Supplies, and in 1919 British representative on the Supreme Economic Council. From 1920 to 1922 he was successivelv Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food and to the Board of Trade and was made post-master-general when Mr Baldwin’s Government was returned to office in November, 1924. In January, 1931, he was raised to the peerage. He had married in 1909 a daughter of Sir Malcolm McEachran. but she divorced him in March, 1932. His second wife was Mrs Effie Lilian Loder Johnson, who was Effie Cook of the famous Pelis- ; sier Follies.