46 Facts About Duff Cooper

Duff Cooper later served in the Cabinet as Secretary of State for War and First Lord of the Admiralty.

Duff Cooper denounced the Munich agreement of 1938 as meaningless, cowardly, and unworkable, as he resigned from the cabinet.

Duff Cooper served an important role as representative to Charles de Gaulle's Free France and ambassador to France from 1944 to 1948.

Duff Cooper had already eloped with two husbands, the first of whom she deserted and the second of whom died, before marrying Cooper in 1882.

Duff Cooper had three older sisters and one older half sister from his mother's first marriage.

Duff Cooper was unhappy at prep school, but was then very happy at Eton College.

Duff Cooper cultivated a reputation for eloquence and fast living and, although he had established a reputation as a poet, he earned an even stronger reputation for gambling, womanising, and drinking in his studied emulation of the life of the 18th and 19th century Whig statesman Charles James Fox.

Duff Cooper had not actively sought to join the Army but was happy to be "released" as a result of the manpower shortage, as he thought joining the Army the decent thing to do.

Duff Cooper spent six months on the Western Front, during which, Philip Ziegler writes, he proved himself "exceptionally courageous, resourceful, and a natural leader of men," at a time when the life expectancy of junior officers was very brief.

Duff Cooper suffered a minor wound in the advance to the Albert Canal in August 1918, and was awarded the Distinguished Service Order for conspicuous gallantry, a rare decoration for a junior officer.

Duff Cooper played significant roles in the Egyptian and Turkish crises in the early 1920s.

The money which she earned enabled Duff Cooper to resign from the Foreign Office in July 1924.

Duff Cooper was seen as a coming man within the party.

Duff Cooper was a stalwart supporter of Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin, and a friend of Chancellor of the Exchequer, Winston Churchill.

Out of Parliament, Duff Cooper wrote a biography of the French statesman Talleyrand.

Duff Cooper wrote slowly but seldom needed to revise his drafts.

Duff Cooper won the seat with a majority of 5,710, thus returning to Parliament and serving until 1945.

Duff Cooper had been to Germany, and had seen and been appalled by a Nuremberg Rally.

Duff Cooper urged rearmament, not then a fashionable view, and briefed Churchill, then on the backbenches, that Hitler was serious and wanted war.

Duff Cooper insisted on full access to Haig's papers and relied heavily on Haig's diaries.

Haig's widow then had second thoughts and wrote a book of her own, The Man I Knew, whose publication Faber and Faber delayed with legal action until after Duff Cooper had published his two volumes in 1935 and 1936.

Duff Cooper stressed Haig's strong and upright character, as if he were writing about a Victorian hero.

David Lloyd George's memoirs were appearing as Duff Cooper was writing and some of his book was devoted to addressing his arguments.

Duff Cooper argued that Haig's offensive on the Somme saved the French at Verdun, that Haig improved Anglo-French relations and that he defeated the Germans through inflicting attrition on them at the Somme and Third Ypres.

At that time Duff Cooper admitted to Robert Blake, the editor of that work, that he had been influenced by the politics of the 1930s and the desire to facilitate Anglo-French rapprochement.

In November 1935, after the general election, Duff Cooper was promoted to the Cabinet as Secretary of State for War and appointed to the Privy Council.

Duff Cooper felt out of kilter with the Conservative leadership and was surprised when the new Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain appointed him First Lord of the Admiralty in May 1937.

Duff Cooper enjoyed high living on board the Admiralty yacht HMS Enchantress, but fought Chamberlain and the Chancellor of the Exchequer Sir John Simon for more spending on the Royal Navy.

Unlike the other two, Duff Cooper was not offered a job on the outbreak of war in September 1939.

Duff Cooper went on a lecture tour of the US, where he called for the democracies to stand firm against the dictatorships, and predicted that Churchill would become Prime Minister, which seemed an eccentric prediction at the time.

Duff Cooper was sent to Singapore as Minister Resident, charged with reporting on the situation in the Far East and the state of British defences.

Duff Cooper had the authority to form a War Cabinet there, but both military and civil authorities were reluctant to cooperate with him.

Duff Cooper did a lot of writing and spent his weekends at Bognor where his wife had a smallholding.

In December 1943 Duff Cooper was appointed British Representative on the Free French French Committee of National Liberation.

Duff Cooper's remit included maintaining a working relationship between Churchill and de Gaulle, two men whom he found equally difficult.

In January 1947, Duff Cooper, acting without orders, began the process that led to the Treaty of Dunkirk when he suggested to the French Premier Leon Blum that there should an Anglo-French military alliance, an idea Blum took up thinking this was an offer from London.

Duff Cooper bequeathed a large part of his library to the British Embassy in Paris.

Duff Cooper was raised to the Order of St Michael and St George in 1948.

Duff Cooper took on some company directorships, including that of the Wagons-Lits company, but essentially devoted the rest of his life to writing.

Duff Cooper was created Viscount Norwich of Aldwick in the County of Sussex, in 1952, in recognition of his political and literary career.

Duff Cooper's wife refused to be called Lady Norwich, claiming that it sounded too much like "porridge" and promptly took out a newspaper advertisement declaring that she would retain her previous style of Lady Diana Cooper.

Duff Cooper was intemperate in his drinking habits throughout his adult life.

On 28 November 2021, Duff Cooper was posthumously awarded the Order of the White Lion, the highest decoration of Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic, in recognition of his opposition to the Munich Agreement.

Duff Cooper was married to Lady Diana from 1919 to his death and their only child was John Julius Norwich, who became well known as a writer and television presenter.

Duff Cooper fathered eight illegitimate children with Dorothea Jordan, including Lady Elizabeth FitzClarence.

Duff Cooper married William Hay, 18th Earl of Erroll, and one of their children was Lady Agnes Hay, Cooper's grandmother.