13 Facts About Geoffrey Mander

Sir Geoffrey Le Mesurier Mander was a Midland industrialist and chairman of Mander Brothers Ltd.

Geoffrey Mander was the oldest son of Theodore Mander and his wife, Flora St Clair Paint.

Geoffrey Mander was educated at Harrow and Trinity College, Cambridge, served in the Royal Flying Corps in World War I, and was called to the bar at the Inner Temple.

Geoffrey Mander entered the House of Commons as the Liberal Party Member of Parliament for Wolverhampton East at the general election in May 1929.

Geoffrey Mander was a Liberal specialist on foreign policy between the wars, and was one of the first to take a strong stand against Appeasement of the fascist dictators, and was a crusader on behalf of the League of Nations.

Geoffrey Mander won a reputation in Parliament for his determined use of parliamentary questions.

Geoffrey Mander was expected to be nominated Chief Whip for the Liberal Party in the House of Commons, but he lost his seat at the 1945 general election, in the post-war Labour landslide.

Geoffrey Mander was chairman of Mander Brothers for a generation, one of the principal local employers and a major manufacturer of paints, inks and varnishes in the British Empire.

Under his direction, Geoffrey Mander Brothers was the first British company to introduce the 40-hour week through an historic agreement signed and mediated by Ernest Bevin, general secretary of the Transport and General Workers' Union, in September 1931.

Geoffrey Mander offered to buy for the nation William Morris's Red House in London, if a suitable tenant could be found.

Geoffrey Mander did present the family house, Wightwick Manor, in Staffordshire, with its outstanding collections of Victorian art and objects associated with William Morris, the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and the Arts and Crafts movement to the National Trust in 1937.

Geoffrey Mander's second wife, Rosalie Glynn Grylls, was a biographer and lecturer with an interest in the writers and artists of the Romantic period, and an early connoisseur of the Pre-Raphaelite movement.

Geoffrey Mander's autobiography was published posthumously in 2021 as Lemons for Chamberlain: The Life and Backbench Career of Geoffrey Mander MP, edited by Patricia Pegg.