Harry Lawson Webster Levy-Lawson, 1st Viscount Burnham, GCMG,CH,TD,JP,DL (18 December 1862 – 20 July 1933), was a British newspaper proprietor. He was originally a Liberal politician before joining the Liberal Unionist Party in the late 1890s. He sat in the House of Commons 1885–1892, 1893–1895, 1905–1906 and 1910–1916 until he inherited the Burnham barony on the death of his father.
Biography
Levy-Lawson was born in St Pancras, London, in 1862, the son of Edward Levy (who was created Baron Burnham in 1903) and his wife Harriette Georgiana Webster. The family name was legally changed from Levy to Levy-Lawson on 11 December 1875.
He was educated at Cheam School, Headley, Berkshire, Eton and Balliol College, Oxford. He became a lieutenant in the Royal Buckinghamshire Yeomanry, treasurer of the Free Land League, vice president of the Municipal Reform League, and a member of the executive committee of Municipal Federation League.[1] In 1891, he was admitted to the Inner Temple, entitling him to practise as a barrister.
He saw active service in the First World War, where he was mentioned in despatches. In 1916, on the death of his father, he succeeded to the titles of Baron Burnham and the baronetcy and took his seat in the House of Lords. He also succeeded his father in the management and ownership of The Daily Telegraph. He was decorated with the Territorial Decoration (TD) and became Honorary Colonel of the 99th (Bucks and Berks Yeomanry) Brigade, Royal Artillery. He was invested as a Member of the Order of the Companions of Honour (CH) in 1917.
He was the first chairman of the Burnham Committees on teachers' pay, which were named after him.[6]
Family, interests and Hall Barn
Levy-Lawson was created Viscount Burnham, of Hall Barn, in the County of Buckingham, on 16 May 1919. He married Olive de Bathe, daughter of Sir Henry de Bathe, 4th Baronet, and Charlotte Clare, on 2 January 1884 at St. Margaret's Church, Westminster. They had one daughter, Dorothy Olive Lawson (1885–1937), who married Major John Spencer Coke (son of Thomas Coke, 2nd Earl of Leicester) and with whom she had three children: Gerald, Celia and Rosemary Coke – the latter later Baroness Hamilton of Dalzell.[7]
His father, who was "one of the Prince of Wales' set", had purchased the 4,000-acre Hall Barn estate in 1880. Viscount Burnham and his father hosted King Edward VII and his son, King George V, and his son King Edward VIII on many occasions from the early 1900s to the 1930s. On 19 December 1924, for example, Burnham hosted a dinner party for King George V with Rudyard Kipling, Harry's daughter, Dorothy Levy-Lawson, and her husband, Major Sir John Coke, amongst the guests.[8]
He died aged 70 and was buried near his father on 24 July 1933 at Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire. Burnham had no surviving male issue so the viscountcy became extinct: his younger brother, William Levy-Lawson (1864–1943), succeeded to the baronetcy and barony.
Arms
Coat of arms of Harry Levy-Lawson, 1st Viscount Burnham
Escutcheon
Quarterly 1st & 4th Azure three bars gemel Argent over all a winged morion Or 2nd & 3rd Gules a saltire double parted and fretted Or between in fess two rams' heads couped in fess Argent.
Supporters
Dexter the figure of Clio the Muse of history Proper sinister the figure of Hermes vested Argent mantled Azure on the head of a winged morion on his heels wings and in his exterior hand a caduceus Or.[9]
^Craig, F. W. S. (1989) [1974]. British parliamentary election results 1885–1918 (2nd ed.). Chichester: Parliamentary Research Services. ISBN0-900178-27-2.
^Kidd, C. (1990). Debrett's Peerage and Baronetage 1990. Debrett's Peerage 1990. ISBN9780333388471. Retrieved 3 August 2016. Rosemary Olive (Baroness Hamilton of Dalzell), b 1910: m 1935, 3rd Baron Hamilton of Dalzell. Residence – Garden Cottage, Snowdenham House, Bramley, Guildford.— Celia Dorothy, b 1919: m 1942, Stamp Godfrey Brooksbank, Capt ...
^Kipling, R. (1990). The Letters of Rudyard Kipling: 1920-30. University of Iowa Press, 1990. p. 189. ISBN9780877456575. Retrieved 22 July 2015. ...Lord Astor...Lord (Harry) Burnham, his brother and duplicate, his son-in-law (Sir John Spencer Coke)...I (Kipling) sat next to the King.... [notes - The Hon. Sir John Spencer Coke (1880-1957), son of the 2nd Earl Leicester, married the Hon. Dorothy Olive Lawson in 1907...]