Lord Elton 1930-2013
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BREMENMURRAY
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Richard R
BREMENMURRAY
Richard R
E X T R A C T
Lord Elton, Conservative politician who steered the bill to abolish the GLC through the House of Lords – obituary
One of his most memorable political encounters was with an elephant at London Zoo
… Lord Elton was virtually unknown outside the confines of Westminster. However, in 1986 he achieved a brief moment of fame when he announced his decision to list six red telephone boxes designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott.
...He made the announcement at a press conference held next door to the parrot house at London Zoo, where he “listed” a rare 1929 K3 model and attempted to make a “trunk call” from it with the assistance of a two-and-a-half-year-old Asian elephant. The elephant put in a faultless performance; not so BT: the telephone was out of order.Rodney Elton was born on March 2 1930 to Godfrey Elton, a historian, Oxford don and friend and biographer of Ramsay MacDonald, and his wife Dedi, née Hartmann. Godfrey Elton was expelled from the Labour Party for supporting MacDonald when he left the party in 1931 to form a national government. He was rewarded for his loyalty with a peerage in 1934.
Rodney was educated at Eton and at New College, Oxford, where he read history. He served as a captain in the Queen’s Own Warwickshire and Worcestershire Yeomanry (TA) and later as a major in the Leicestershire and Derbyshire Yeomanry. …
… He stood unsuccessfully for Parliament as Conservative candidate for Loughborough in 1966 and again in 1970. After succeeding to the title on his father’s death in 1973, he became a Lords Opposition Whip and front-bench spokesman on education and Wales, establishing a reputation as a party loyalist and a safe if unspectacular performer…
… In 1999 he was elected as one of the 90 hereditary peers allowed to remain in the House pending completion of House of Lords reform. He retired from the House in 2020.
In 1958 Rodney Elton married Anne Tilney. The marriage was dissolved in 1979, and the same year he married, secondly, Richenda Gurney. She survives him with three daughters and a son from his first marriage.
His son, Edward Paget Elton, born in 1966, inherits the title.
Lord Elton, born March 2 1930, died August 19 2023
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/obituaries/2023/08/25/lord-elton-tory-abolish-glc-died-obituary/
