37 Facts About Victor Cazalet

Colonel Victor Alexander Cazalet, MC was a British Conservative Party Member of Parliament for nineteen years.

Victor Cazalet promoted strong military ties with the United States before and during the war and was an outspoken advocate for creating a Jewish homeland in Palestine.

Victor Cazalet became godfather to actress Elizabeth Taylor after developing a friendship with her family.

Victor Cazalet was born in London, at 4 Whitehall Gardens, on 12 December 1896, the second son of William Marshall Cazalet and his wife, Maud.

The ancestors of the Victor Cazalet family were Huguenots from Languedoc, in the south of France, who settled in England after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes had forced them out of the country.

Victor Cazalet's father had achieved success in business and was heir to his own father's fortune as an industrialist with business activities in Russia.

Victor Cazalet had three siblings: Edward, Thelma and Peter.

Victor Cazalet was commissioned into the Queen's Own West Kent Yeomanry in 1915 and reached the rank of Captain.

Victor Cazalet subsequently served in the front line with the Household Battalion of the 1st Life Guards, and received the Military Cross for gallantry in 1917.

Victor Cazalet served on the staff of the Allied Supreme War Council, whose conferences led up to the Treaty of Versailles, which ended the war.

Victor Cazalet visited the Soviet Union with Sikorski in 1942.

Victor Cazalet termed himself "a booster for America" and had publicly expressed the gratitude of British subjects for the aid that America gave Britain before and after World War II began.

Victor Cazalet hoped that the US and British Navies would join after the war to "pool their policies and ideas".

Victor Cazalet had expressed that opinion since the disputes at the 1927 Geneva Naval Conference and he continued during the revival of those efforts that led to the London Naval Treaty in 1930.

Victor Cazalet feared that a failure of Britain and the United States to reach an agreement, regardless of the other countries involved, would lead to a dangerous competition in shipbuilding between both countries that would seriously jeopardise world peace: In 1929 he said, "Each country should build the ships it needs without regarding the other navy as a possible enemy".

In 1941, during the London Blitz, Victor Cazalet urged the American government to keep the lifeline between their countries open.

Victor Cazalet added that Britain was deeply grateful for the help it had already received from the US.

Victor Cazalet had become chairman of the House of Commons Palestine Committee and described the plight of Britain under siege as connected to that of the Jews who were being driven from Europe by the Nazis.

Victor Cazalet wrote, "Lord Balfour's devotion to the cause of Jewry will be recognised wherever Jews are to be found in this world".

In 1942, Victor Cazalet called upon the British government to grant the Jewish Agency's request to create a fighting force of 20,000 Jewish soldiers and a home guard of 50,000 to be made an integral part of the British Army.

At a 1941 conference in the United States in which he was joined by Sikorski, Victor Cazalet advocated forgetting differences and "uniting all forces in an effort to defeat the enemy".

Victor Cazalet saw the struggle in Palestine as setting an example for the rest of the world.

Victor Cazalet's family received a flood of tributes, many from unknown admirers and others from notables, including Churchill, Anthony Eden, Eleanor Rathbone, Hugh Dalton and Polish dignitaries.

Victor Cazalet, who was homosexual, was a member of the social circle of gay politicians derisively called the "Glamour Boys" by Neville Chamberlain.

Victor Cazalet was a Christian Scientist and a member of Ninth Church of Christ, Scientist, London.

Victor Cazalet was a landowner and a wealthy bachelor, whose numerous social and political connections included close friendships with Winston Churchill and Anthony Eden.

Victor Cazalet was the amateur squash champion in 1925,1927,1929 and 1930, who played as a member of the English squash team when it won the international trophy after competing against Canada and the United States in 1927.

Victor Cazalet played tennis competitively, including seven appearances at Wimbledon between 1922 and 1933.

In 1936, Victor Cazalet purchased the 400-acre Great Swifts estate near Cranbrook, Kent, demolishing the old house and building a new one in Georgian style, designed by architect Geddes Hyslop.

Victor Cazalet's sister, Thelma Victor Cazalet-Keir, was a noted feminist and a Conservative MP.

Victor Cazalet was godfather to Winston and Clementine Churchill's youngest daughter, Mary, born in 1922.

Victor Cazalet tried unsuccessfully to persuade her mother to name her Victoria.

Victor Cazalet, who had a passion for fine art, became a close friend of American art gallery owners Francis Taylor and his wife Sara, parents of Elizabeth, after they had moved from the US to London in 1936.

Victor Cazalet let the Taylor family, who were Christian Scientists, spend their weekends in a 16th-century cottage on his Great Swifts estate.

Victor Cazalet wanted them to think of England as their new home.

Victor Cazalet gave 4-year-old Elizabeth a horse named Betty as a gift, which she would ride bareback throughout the property.

When he arrived, recalled her mother, "Victor Cazalet sat on the bed and held Elizabeth in his arms and talked to her about God," and soon after the fever had broken.