9205

Patrick David de Laszlo 1932

Half-length in profile to the left, head turned to the viewer, wearing a brown riding jacket, white stock and holding a whip in his white-gloved right hand

Oil on canvas, 82.6 x 59.7 cm (32 ½ x 23 ½ in.)

Inscribed lower right: To Patrick / 1932 / de László 

Laib L18178 (759) / C19 (4A) Patrick de Laszlo

NPG Album 1932, f. 13b

Private Collection

Although Patrick de Laszlo was frequently painted by his father as a child, there are relatively few of him as a young adult. The present portrait can be considered the finest and most elegant of all. It was painted the year after Patrick completed his studies at Balliol College, Oxford, when he was twenty-three years of age.

An abandoned version of the present portrait is on the verso of a portrait of Baron Jarlsberg. It shows Patrick head and shoulders to the left, looking to the right, wearing a hunting jacket and stock, a green curtain behind [5827].

Patrick David de Laszlo was born in London on 26 March 1909, the fourth of the five sons of Philip Alexius de László and his wife Lucy Madeline Guinness. His second Christian name was given to him in honour of the artist Jacques-Louis David. Aged eight, he went like his elder brothers to Twyford Preparatory School, and later to Lancing and to Balliol College, Oxford, from 1927 until 1931. He gained a B.Lit. Econs. in his first year, and then Hons. P.P.E. in three years. He was asked to stay at Oxford to teach economics but declined, and went on to develop a distinguished career as an engineering inventor and designer.

In an interview for the British Library National Life Stories, Sir Alexander Glen recalled meeting Patrick in October 1931: “... he was very impressive. Tall, very decisive, very clipped, to-the-point conversation. Pretty terrifying the first impact … fairly quickly after that, and I found instead a really thrillingly exciting person who was extraordinarily nice to me.”^[1]

After spending some time in Hamburg, and lecturing in America, he joined his brother Stephen designing miniature radio valves and together they founded a company called Hivac, which developed and manufactured these valves. Hivac was later sold to English Electric. From 1937-1949, he was Managing Director of Celestion Ltd. (a public company), which made loudspeakers but which also went into the manufacture of portable radio transmitters/receivers. These ‘small radios’ were first used by the 1933 Oxford University Expedition to the Arctic and subsequently used in clandestine army operations during the Second World War. Patrick was co-opted as a Group Captain to build a radar chain around Britain, which was crucial in directing Fighter Command, culminating in the successful concentration of airborne resources in the Battle of Britain. Another of his companies, the McMurdo Instrument Co., developed escape lights for life-jackets for the Royal Navy. These were later adopted by B.O.A.C. and many other international airlines. Celestion Ltd. was the company chosen by the Government Research Establishment to ‘productionise’ the proximity fuse that the G.R.E. had developed as a prototype. It was capable of detonating an Anti-Aircraft shell when it came within lethal range of its target, or more specifically, the German V1 rockets attacking southern Britain during 1943. The success of this project played a vital part in the countering of the worst of the onslaught of the V1 bomb attacks. Micro Precision Products was also very successful in making press cameras, which was the cover for the secret side of their manufacturing. Patrick continued to be entrusted by the British Government with the development work on proximity fuses, suitable for various kinds of ammunition for twenty years after the war.

After the war Patrick founded Halmatic Ltd., of which he was Managing Director from 1950 until 1960. It pioneered the design and manufacture of fibreglass reinforced plastic boat hulls. The technique evolved by Halmatic was subsequently universally adopted for yachts of all kinds and other small vessels. A further company, Digital Systems, was set up in the 1960s, which pioneered the technique of transmitting high speed data over lower power radio equipment. He also set up a subsidiary of McMurdo’s: Harwin Engineers, Portsmouth, of which he became a director. This was the only company he kept after selling all his other interests when he ‘retired’ in the late 1960s.

From 1957 until 1964, he was a Member of Westminster City Council and served on a number of committees, in particular the Finance Committee, as well as being Chairman of the Works Committee. In 1968, he was elected Chairman of the London Westminster Conservative Association, a post which he held for nine years, undertaking the task of amalgamating it with the City of London Conservative Association, which led to the creation of the Cities of London and Westminster Conservative Association. During that time he was elected Deputy Chairman of the Greater London Area Conservative Party. He became Chairman of the Economic Research Council in 1959 and up till the end of his life played a leading role in its affairs, most notably seeing through the E.R.C.’s sponsorship of the ‘Programme for National Recovery.’ Patrick de Laszlo was Chairman of the Association of Independent Businesses from 1973 to 1976, and President from 1976.

In 1940 he married Deborah Hamar, daughter of the first Viscount Greenwood; they had a son, Damon (born 1942), and four daughters, Stephanie (born 1944), Meriel (born 1950), Grania (born 1953), and Charmian (born 1957). The marriage was dissolved in 1970. In 1973 he married for the second time, to Mrs Penelope Kitson; that marriage was dissolved in 1976. His third marriage was to Baroness Sharples, in 1977; she had been previously married to Sir Richard Sharples, Governor of Bermuda, who was assassinated there in 1973. He died in London aged seventy-one on 27 October 1980.

PROVENANCE:         

In the possession of the artist on his death

SdeL 2008