David Montgomery, 2nd Viscount Montgomery of Alamein

David Bernard Montgomery, 2nd Viscount Montgomery of Alamein, CMG, CBE (18 August 1928 – 8 January 2020) was a British politician and businessman.

Early life and education

Montgomery was the only child of Field Marshal The 1st Viscount Montgomery of Alamein, famous senior military commander in the Second World War. David attended Winchester College from May 1942 onwards, and his father, posted abroad from the middle of the year, arranged for his time in school holidays to be divided between his prep school headmaster and great family friends, Major Thomas Reynolds and Mrs. Phyllis Reynolds, and Jocelyn, wife of David's half-brother John Carver (one of two sons from David's mother's previous marriage), as well as strict instructions that "on no account" was the boy to visit his aged grandmother, whom the then Sir Bernard Law Montgomery detested, in Inishowen, County Donegal, in Ulster. Montgomery gained an engineering degree at Trinity College, Cambridge.

Career

Montgomery entered business, working for Yardley and several other companies, building close links with Latin America. He served as a patron and chairman of various Anglo-Latin American organisations, including the Anglo-Argentine Society, Canning House and the Hispanic and Luso Brazilian Council. He succeeded in the viscountcy following his father's death in 1976 and originally sat as a Conservative in the House of Lords until 1999, when he and most other hereditary peers were removed from the House under the House of Lords Act 1999. He was returned to the Lords as a crossbencher in an election of hereditary cross-bench peers in 2005, following the death of Baroness Strange.

Lord Montgomery of Alamein was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1975 and a Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George (CMG) in 2000. He also received decorations from Germany, Belgium, Spain, Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Venezuela and Colombia. He co-wrote The Lonely Leader: Monty 1944–45 with Alistair Horne about his father in 1994 which documented his own early life as well as his father's.

Personal life

In 1953, The Hon. David Montgomery, as he was then, married Mary Connell, divorcing in 1967 after having a son and a daughter:

Issue:

• Henry David Montgomery, 3rd Viscount Montgomery of Alamein (2 April 1954): he married Caroline Jane Odey on 21 June 1980. They have three daughters:
  • The Honourable Alexa Maud Montgomery (30 August 1984)
  • The Honourable Flora Veronica Montgomery (4 May 1988)
  • The Honourable Phoebe Matilda Montgomery (4 February 1990)
• The Honourable Arabella Clare Montgomery (born 21 November 1956); she married Sir Jeremy Stuart-Smith on 25 September 1982. They have five children:
  • Emma Stuart-Smith (6 October 1984)
  • Laura Stuart-Smith (1986-1987)
  • Edward Murray Stuart-Smith (6 May 1988)
  • Samuel Nicholas Stuart-Smith (6 December 1990)
  • Luke David Stuart-Smith (19 January 1993)

He then married Tessa Browning, daughter of Daphne du Maurier and Lieutenant-General Sir Frederick Browning, a close colleague of his father. Lord Montgomery of Alamein became Patron of Freedom Flame UK, in May 2014, in recognition of the lighting of a Torch of Unity at the D Day stone, Southsea, by his father, Field Marshal The 1st Viscount Montgomery of Alamein, on 13 September 1948.

He died on 8 January 2020 at the age of 91.

Arms

Book

• Hamilton, Nigel (1981). Monty: The Making of a General. London, UK: Hamish Hamilton Ltd. ISBN 0-241-10583-8.