David Rees-Williams, 1st Baron Ogmore

The Right Honourable The Lord Ogmore PC
Member of Parliament for Croydon South
In office 1945–1950
Preceded by	Herbert Williams
Succeeded by	Constituency abolished
Constituency	Croydon South
Personal details
Born	22 November 1903(1903-11-22) Bridgend, Wales
Died	30 August 1976(1976-08-30) (aged 72)
Political party	Labour Party, Liberal Party

David Rees Rees-Williams, 1st Baron Ogmore, PC, TD (22 November 1903 – 30 August 1976) was a Welsh politician.

Rees-Williams was born in Bridgend, Wales. He qualified as a solicitor in 1929 and married and had three children. Commissioned into the 6th (Territorial Army) Battalion, Welch Regiment, he was promoted Captain in 1936 and Major in 1938, by which time his battalion had become a searchlight unit. He transferred to the Royal Artillery in 1940, when all searchlight units did so, and ended the Second World War as a Lieutenant-Colonel.

Rees-Williams was elected Labour Member of Parliament for Croydon South in 1945, defeating the incumbent MP, Sir Herbert Williams. In the government he was a minister in the Colonial Office, travelling to East Asia to consider the movements towards independence. His seat was redistributed at the end of the Parliament and he narrowly lost the successor seat at the 1950 general election and was raised to the peerage as Baron Ogmore, of Bridgend in the County of Glamorgan, on 5 July 1950. He served as Minister of Civil Aviation in 1951 and was made a Privy Councillor the same year. Lord Ogmore was President of the London Welsh Trust, which runs the London Welsh Centre, Gray's Inn Road, from 1955 until 1959.^[1]

Lord Ogmore joined the Liberal Party in 1959 and served as Liberal Party President, 1963 - 1964.

Lord Ogmore's daughter, Elizabeth Rees-Williams, married the actors Sir Richard Harris and Sir Rex Harrison, the businessman Peter Aitken, and more recently Jonathan Aitken, the former Conservative MP.

External links

• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by David Rees-Williams
• Portraits of David Rees-Williams at the National Portrait Gallery, London

Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by Herbert Williams	Member of Parliament for Croydon South 1945–1950	Constituency abolished
Political offices
Preceded by Ivor Bulmer-Thomas	Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies 1947–1950	Succeeded by Thomas Fotheringham-Cook
Preceded by The Lord Pakenham	Minister of Civil Aviation 1951	Succeeded by John Maclay
Party political offices
Preceded by ?	President of the Liberal Party 1963–1964	Succeeded by Roger Fulford
Preceded by ?	President of the Welsh Liberal Party ?–1970	Succeeded by Rhys Lloyd
Peerage of the United Kingdom
New creation	Baron Ogmore 1950–1976	Succeeded by Gwilym Rees Rees-Williams

References

1. ^ "Our Former Presidents: London Welsh Centre". London Welsh Centre website. London Welsh Centre. 2010. http://www.londonwelsh.org/archives/1796. Retrieved 4 February 2011. 

Persondata
Name	Rees-Williams, David
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	22 November 1903
Place of birth	Bridgend, Wales
Date of death	30 August 1976
Place of death