Museums
The author’s father, the 27th Earl of Crawford devoted much of his life to serving culture, education and the arts. He was a trustee of the British Museum, National Gallery, National Portrait Gallery, as well as many smaller institutions. He was the founding chairman of the Art Fund. As a young crusading MP, he had a major role in establishing the Victoria & Albert Museum. He has been dubbed the ‘Uncrowned King of British Art’.
His public service extended across the wider cultural and educational worlds. He was chancellor of Manchester University. He chaired the Council for the Preservation of Rural England and the Manchester Statistical Society. He chaired the committee that created the BBC in its present form.
During the First World War, he was the first peer to enrol in the army as a private soldier. After serving as a hospital orderly in France, he joined the cabinet as Minister of Agriculture; he also chaired the Wheat Commission, a body established to regulate the global cereals business, when Britain faced the risk of famine at the end of 1916, because of the German submarine blockade.