David Rees-Williams, 1st Baron Ogmore

{{Infobox officeholder

| honorific-prefix = The Right Honourable

|birthname=David Rees Rees-Williams

| name= The Lord Ogmore

| honorific-suffix = PC

| image=Lord Ogmore.jpg

| caption=Rees-Williams in 1947

| country=United Kingdom

| birth_date ={{birth date|df=yes|1903|11|22}}

| birth_place = Bridgend, Wales

| death_date ={{death date and age|df=yes|1976|8|30|1903|11|22}}

| death_place =

| office = Member of Parliament for Croydon South

| term_start =5 July 1945

| term_end=3 February 1950

| predecessor =Herbert Williams

| successor =Constituency abolished

| spouse= Constance Wills

| children=3

| party=Labour (until 1959)
Liberal (1959–1976)

}}

David Rees Rees-Williams, 1st Baron Ogmore, PC, TD (22 November 1903 – 30 August 1976) was a British politician.

Career

Rees-Williams was born in Bridgend, Wales, the son of William Rees Williams,Per Burke's Peerage 2003 vol. 2 p. 2988, William was son of George Williams and Elvira Rees; David Rees-Williams was the first to use both names as a hyphenated surname. of Garth-celyn, Bridgend, and Jennet, daughter of Morgan David, of Bridgend. William Rees Williams was a veterinary surgeon (a Fellow of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons), and had served as a captain in the Royal Army Veterinary Corps.{{cite web | url=https://biography.wales/article/s8-WILL-REE-1903 | title=WILLIAMS, DAVID REES (Later REES-WILLIAMS, DAVID REES), 1st BARON OGMORE (1903-1976), politician and lawyer | Dictionary of Welsh Biography }}Burke's Peerage, Baronetage and Knightage, 107th edition, vol. 2, ed. Charles Mosley, Burke's Peerage Ltd, 2003, p. 2988 He qualified as a solicitor in 1929. Commissioned into the 6th (Territorial Army) Battalion, Welch Regiment, he was promoted Captain in 1936 and Major in 1938, by which time his battalion had become a searchlight unit. He transferred to the Royal Artillery in 1940, when all searchlight units did so, and ended the Second World War as a Lieutenant-Colonel.

Rees-Williams was elected Labour Member of Parliament for Croydon South in 1945, defeating the incumbent MP, Sir Herbert Williams. In the government he was a minister in the Colonial Office, travelling to East Asia to consider the movements towards independence. His seat was redistributed at the end of the Parliament and he narrowly lost the successor seat at the 1950 general election and was raised to the peerage as Baron Ogmore, of Bridgend in the County of Glamorgan, on 10 July 1950.{{London Gazette |issue=38968 |date=14 July 1950 |page=3622}} He served as Minister of Civil Aviation in 1951 and was made a Privy Councillor the same year. Lord Ogmore was President of the London Welsh Trust, which ran the London Welsh Centre, Gray's Inn Road, from 1955 until 1959.{{cite web|url=http://www.londonwelsh.org/archives/1796 |title=Our Former Presidents: London Welsh Centre |work=London Welsh Centre website |publisher=London Welsh Centre |year=2010 |access-date=4 February 2011 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110720025944/http://www.londonwelsh.org/archives/1796 |archive-date=20 July 2011 }}

Lord Ogmore joined the Liberal Party in 1959 and served as Liberal Party President, 1963–1964.

Personal life

In 1930, Lord Ogmore married (Alice Alexandra) Constance, daughter of Walter Robert Wills, Lord Mayor of Cardiff from 1945 to 1946.{{cite book|title=The international who's who|author=Europa Publications Limited|date=1974|publisher=Europa Publications|isbn=9780900362729|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wsnwF5v_RO0C|access-date=20 May 2015}} He had three children. His daughter, Elizabeth Rees-Williams, married the actors Richard Harris and Sir Rex Harrison, the businessman Peter Aitken, and more recently Jonathan Aitken, the former Conservative MP. His grandsons are actors Jared Harris and Jamie Harris and director Damian Harris.Burke's Peerage, Baronetage and Knightage, 107th edition, vol. 2, ed. Charles Mosley, Burke's Peerage Ltd, 2003, p. 2988Burke's Peerage and Baronetage, 106th edition, ed. Charles Mosley, Burke's Peerage Ltd, 1999, vol. 1, p. 231

Honours

{{Infobox COA wide

|image = Ogmore Achievement.png

|escutcheon = Azure two bars wavy Argent on a chief arched of the second between as many hurts each charged with a quatrefoil Or a hurt thereon a sun in splendour of the third.

|crest = A tiger’s head couped Proper charged on the neck with three chevronels couped Gules.

|supporters = Dexter a tiger Proper charged on the shoulder with three chevronels couped Gules, sinister a horse Argent.

|motto = Ffyddlon Hyd Angau (Faithful Unto Death) {{cite book|title=Debrett's Peerage |date=1985}}

}}

=Foreign honour=

{{flag|Myanmar}} :
50px Agga-Maha-Thayay-Sithu of the Order of the Pyidaungsu Sithu Thingaha (1956)
{{flag|Malaya}} :
50px Honorary Commander of the Order of the Defender of the Realm (P.M.N. (K)) - Tan Sri (1959){{cite web|url=http://www.istiadat.gov.my/v8/images/stories/1959.pdf|title=Senarai Penuh Penerima Darjah Kebesaran, Bintang dan Pingat Persekutuan Tahun 1959.|access-date=18 June 2016|archive-date=14 February 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190214234731/http://www.istiadat.gov.my/v8/images/stories/1959.pdf|url-status=dead}}