- George Croydon Marks, Baron Marks of Woolwich
Sir George Croydon Marks, Baron Marks of Woolwich (
9 June 1858 -24 September 1938 ) was a Britishengineer ,patent agent and Liberal (later Labour)politician [Michael R. Lane, ‘ [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/37737 Marks, George Croydon, Baron Marks (1858–1938)] ’, rev.,Oxford Dictionary of National Biography ,Oxford University Press , 2004] . Marks was born inEltham inKent . He was educated at a private day-school in Eltham and at the Royal Arsenal School; his father William Marks had worked at theRoyal Arsenal inWoolwich . He completed his education atKing's College London . In 1881 he married Margaret Maynard. They never had children. Marks worked for a number of engineering companies until establishing himself as a consulting engineer and patent agent inBirmingham in 1887. In 1889 he went into partnership withDugald Clerk and they developed a number of cliffrailway s and steep-incline tramcar systems. The company became big enough to move its headquarters to London in 1893, with branches in Birmingham andManchester and an office in New York. He was a member of theInstitution of Mechanical Engineers and an Associate Member of theInstitution of Civil Engineers [Who was Who, OUP, 2007] .In 1906, Marks was elected as MP for Launceston and North Cornwall in the Liberal landslide general election victory. He received a
knighthood in 1911, served at theMinistry of Munitions during theFirst World War and was awarded the CBE for work as a commissioner for the dilution of labour. He held his Parliamentary seat until 1924. In 1929, he left the Liberals and joinedRamsay Macdonald 's Labour Party. His almost immediate reward was apeerage , becoming one of the first two Labour peers to be created [The Times, obituary, 26 September 1938] .He continued his engineering and business activities and died at his home in
Poole ,Dorset in 1938. As he had no children, his peerage did not survive him.References
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