11 Facts About Claude Lancaster

Colonel Claude Granville Lancaster was a British Army officer, coal industry director, and Conservative Party politician.

Claude Lancaster was born on 30 August 1899, the son of George Granville Lancaster, who bought Kelmarsh Hall near Market Harborough, Leicestershire, in 1902.

Claude Lancaster's grandfather was John Lancaster, a coal owner and MP for Wigan in the 19th century.

Claude Lancaster passed out of Sandhurst in 1918 and was commissioned into the Royal Horse Guards on 21 August that year, too late to see active service in the First World War.

In 1938 Claude Lancaster was elected Conservative Member of Parliament for Fylde in a by-election, and sat in the House of Commons for Fylde and later Fylde South until 1970.

Just before the outbreak of the Second World War, Claude Lancaster was appointed as a Reserve officer to command the 9th Battalion the Sherwood Foresters, a duplicate Territorial Army unit being formed at Bulwell near Nottingham.

However, on 1 November 1941, Claude Lancaster's battalion was converted to the armoured car role as 112th Regiment Royal Armoured Corps.

Lieutenant-Colonel Claude Lancaster remained in command during this period before serving for a while in Guards Armoured Division and then returning to the House of Commons, when he was granted the Honorary rank of Colonel in the Royal Armoured Corps.

Claude Lancaster had maintained his coal industry links while serving in the army: in 1943 he was instrumental in a mission being sent to the United States to prepare for American power loading machinery being introduced into British mines.

Claude Lancaster was a member of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Nationalised Industries and of an inquiry into the activities of the Bank of England, set up in 1969.

In 1948 Claude Lancaster married Nancy Keene Perkins, an American interior designer and gardener whose previous husband had been Ronald Tree, MP for Harborough.