Alfred Mond, 1st Baron Melchett

Infobox Person
name = Alfred Mond


image_size =
caption = Alfred Mond
birth_date = 23 October 1868
birth_place = Farnworth, Widnes,
Lancashire, England
death_date = 27 December 1930
death_place = London
education = Cheltenham College,
St. John's College, Cambridge
Edinburgh University
occupation = Industrialist, financier, politician
title = Baron
spouse = Violet Mond
parents = Ludwig Mond
Frieda Löwenthal
children = Henry Ludwig
nationality = English
website =
[
The Iconoclast
Sir Alfred Mond. "I'm sorry to have to disturb Your Majesty, but, owing to the shortage of sites—"

George III. "Shortage of sights, indeed!"
[It is understood that a number of London statues, including that of George III in Cockspur Street, are to be removed by the Office of Works to make room for new ones.]
Cartoon from Punch magazine, August 18th 1920] Alfred Moritz Mond, 1st Baron Melchett, PC, LLD, DSc, FRS (23 October 1868–27 December 1930) was a British industrialist, financier and politician. In his later life he became an active Zionist.

Early life and eduation

Alfred Mond was born in Farnworth, Widnes, Lancashire, England, the younger son of Ludwig Mond, a chemist and industrialist of Jewish extraction who had emigrated from Germany, and his wife Frieda née Löwenthal. He was educated at Cheltenham College and St. John's College, Cambridge but failed his natural sciences tripos. He then studied law at Edinburgh University and was called to the bar by the Inner Temple in 1894.Greenaway, Frank (2004) 'Mond family ("per". 1867–1973)', "Oxford Dictionary of National Biography", Oxford University Press. [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/51124] Retrieved on 9 March 2007.]

Business career

Following this he joined his father's business, Brunner Mond & Company as director, later becoming its managing director. He was also managing director of his father's other company the Mond Nickel Company. Other directorships included those of the International Nickel Corporation of Canada, the Westminster Bank and the Industrial Finance Investment Corporation. His major business achievement was in 1926 working to create the merger of four separate companies to form Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI) one of the world's largest industrial corporations at the time. He became its first chairman. [cite web |url=http://picture.stockton.gov.uk/photos/t4010-t396.aspx |title=ICI's first chairman Sir Alfred Mond |accessdate=2007-06-25 |publisher=Picture Stockton]

Politics

Mond was also involved in politics and sat as Liberal Member of Parliament for Chester from 1906 to 1910, for Swansea from 1910 to 1918 and for Swansea West from 1918 to 1923. He served in the coalition government of David Lloyd George as First Commissioner of Works from 1916 to 1921 and as Minister of Health (with a seat in the cabinet) from 1921 to 1922. He later switched party and represented Carmarthen from 1924 to 1928, initially as a Liberal, but in 1926. Mond became a Conservative, after falling out with Lloyd George over the former Prime Minister's controversial plans to nationalise agricultural land. [Bolitho, Alfred Mond: First Lord Melchett; Carmarthen Record Office, Dynevor Papers"]

Mond was created a baronet, of Hartford Hill in Great Budworth in the County of Chester, in 1910, and was admitted to the Privy Council in 1913. In 1928 he was raised to the peerage as Baron Melchett of Landford in the County of Southampton.

Benefactions, Zionism and honours

His father had bequeathed a collection of old master paintings to the National Gallery and Alfred provided housing for them in 1924. In 1929 he provided land in Chelsea for the Chelsea Health Society.

He first visited Palestine in 1921 with Chaim Weizmann and subsequently became an enthusiastic Zionist, contributing money to the Jewish Colonization Corporation for Palestine and writing for Zionist publications. He became President of the British Zionist Foundation and made financial contributions to Zionist causes. He was the first President of the Technion in 1925. [cite web |url=http://www.weizmann.ac.il/ICS/booklet/14/pdf/weintraub.pdf#page=6 |title=Alfred Mond (Lord Melchett): Great Zionist Leader |accessdate=2007-06-25 |last=Weintraub |first=Ben |authorlink= |coauthors= |date= |year= |month= |format= |work= |publisher=The Israel Chemical Society |pages=6 ] Melchett founded the town of Tel Mond, now in Israel. [cite web |url=http://www.sarasotasistercities.org/Tel_mond.html |title=Tel Mond, Israel |accessdate=2007-06-25 |publisher=Sarasota Sister Cities Association]

He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1928 and received a number of honorary degrees from Oxford, Paris and other universities.

Personal life

In 1894 Mond married Violet Goetze and they had one son, Henry Ludwig, and three daughters. He died in his London home in 1930.

Publications

* "Industry and Politics" (1927)
* "Imperial Economic Unity" (1930)

Literary References

Mond is mentioned in T.S. Eliot's 1920 poem [http://www.bartleby.com/199/16.html A Cooking Egg] .

Notes