7069

Study portrait 

Roundell Cecil Palmer, Viscount Wolmer 1916

Head only, in three-quarter profile to the left

Oil on board, 58.5 x 39.4 cm (23 x 15 ½ in.)

Inscribed lower right:  László / 1916 July   

Laib L7891 (102) / C27 (11): Viscount Walmer [sic]

NPG 1915-16 Album, p. 88, where dated by the artist: 1916

Sitters’ Book II, f. 7: Wolmer July 21st 1916.

Private Collection

This study portrait of Viscount Wolmer was probably painted by de László during a single sitting, on 21 July 1916, as suggested by the artist’s sitters’ book. It is likely that it only took de László an hour or two to make the present work. Viscount Wolmer had lost one of his brothers in action, Robert [7071], in January 1916, and de László had agreed to paint a posthumous portrait of him for their father, Lord Selborne [6965], for whom the picture was ‘a miracle of consolation.’^[1] This experience probably made Wolmer and his family realise the importance of having a portrait done from life, especially in times of war, if only a freely painted head. De László must have been satisfied with the present portrait, as despite its slightness, he showed it five years later at his exhibition at the French Gallery.

Roundell Cecil Palmer was born on 15 April 1887 in London, the second of four children and the eldest son of William Waldegrave Palmer, later 2nd Earl of Selborne [6965] and his wife Lady Maud Cecil (1858-1950) [7052]. After the death of his grandfather, the 1st Earl of Selborne, in 1895, he was styled Viscount Wolmer. He was educated at Winchester College and at University College, Oxford, where he graduated in Modern History.

Having left Winchester in 1905, in 1906 he was commissioned into the 3rd battalion of the Hampshire regiment. Like his father and grandfather before him, he went into politics. In December 1910, he became an M.P. for the Newton division of Lancashire. In September 1914, he was promoted to Captain and for almost two years served with his training unit in the Isle of Wight and at Gosport. In 1916, he became Parliamentary Private Secretary to his uncle Lord Cecil [4053], who was then Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and between 1916 and 1918, he was Assistant Director of the War Trade Department. At the 1918 general election, he stood for the new constituency formed by Aldershot, and won the seat. He resigned from the army with the rank of Major in 1922. He kept his seat until 1940, when promoted to the House of Lords in his father’s subsidiary title, Baron Selborne. In 1922 he served as Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade, and from 1924 to 1929, as Assistant Postmaster-General. He was sworn to the Privy Council on 5 July 1929, just after he resigned from his previous appointment. In 1932, he published a book, Post Office Reform. He became a prominent figure in the Conservative Party, and was also involved in business, becoming Chairman of the Cement Makers’ Federation (1934-42; 1945-51) and Director of Boots the Chemist from 1936 (and later Deputy Chairman, from 1951 to 1963). Between 1940 and 1942, under his friend Churchill’s wartime coalition, he was Director of Cement in the Ministry of Works, and in February 1942 was appointed Minister of Economic Warfare, which involved heading the Special Operations Executive (SOE), the secret service branch that ran sabotage operations in occupied Europe.

After the war, he turned his energy to the Church of England, becoming a fervent advocate of its self-government. He was president of the Church Army between 1949 and 1961 and Chairman of the House of Laity of the Church Assembly from 1955 to 1959, when he resigned, handicapped by his increasing deafness. He was also elected Master of the Mercers’ Company in 1948, a position his father had held in 1910.

On 9 June 1910, he married the Hon. Grace Ridley, the youngest daughter of Matthew White Ridley, 1st Viscount Ridley, and his wife the Hon. Mary Georgiana Marjoribanks. There were seven children of the marriage: Lady Anne Beatrice Mary (born 1911), The Hon. William Matthew (born 1912), the Hon. John Ralph Roundell (born 1914), who died in infancy, Lady Laura Mary (born 1915), the Hon. Robert Jocelyn (born 1919), Lady Mary Sophia (born 1920), and the Hon. Edward Roundell (born 1926). He succeeded his father as 3rd Earl of Selborne in 1942. After the death of his first wife in 1959, on 3 March 1966 he married Valerie Bevan, née de Thomkahaza. His eldest son was killed on active service in 1942. He died at Blackmoor House, Selborne, Alton, Hampshire, on 3 September 1971, and was succeeded by his grandson, John Roundell Palmer.

EXHIBITED:  
•The French Gallery, London, A Series of Portraits and Studies By Philip A. de László, M.V.O., June 1924, no. 39

CC 2011