{{Short description|British diplomat, Conservative politician and public servant}} {{Use dmy dates|date=January 2023}} {{Use British English|date=March 2012}} {{Infobox officeholder | honorific_prefix = The Right Honourable | name = The Lord Percy of Newcastle | honorific_suffix = PC | image = Eustace Percy, Lord Percy.jpg | image_size = | caption = | order1 = President of the Board of Education | term_start1 = 6 November 1924 | term_end1 = 4 June 1929 | monarch1 = George V | prime_minister1 = Stanley Baldwin | predecessor1 = Charles Trevelyan | successor1 = Sir Charles Trevelyan, Bt | order2 = Minister without Portfolio | term_start2 = 7 June 1935 | term_end2 = 31 March 1936 | monarch2 = George V <br /> Edward VIII | prime_minister2 = Stanley Baldwin | predecessor2 = None | successor2 = None | birth_date = {{birth date text|21 March 1887}} | birth_place = Mayfair, London, England | death_date = {{death date and age|3 April 1958|21 March 1887}} | death_place = Etchingham, Sussex | party = Conservative | alma_mater = Christ Church, Oxford | spouse = Stella Drummond | children = 2 | parents = Henry Percy, 7th Duke of Northumberland<br />Lady Edith Campbell }}
'''Eustace Sutherland Campbell Percy, 1st Baron Percy of Newcastle''' {{post-nominals|country=GBR|PC}} (21 March 1887 – 3 April 1958), styled '''Lord Eustace Percy''' between 1899 and 1953, was a British diplomat, Conservative politician, public servant, and aristocrat from the Percy family. He most notably served as President of the Board of Education under Stanley Baldwin between 1924 and 1929.<ref name="timesobit">{{cite news |title= Obituary: Lord Percy of Newcastle – a Stimulating Educationalist |work=The Times |date=4 April 1958 |page=8 }}</ref>
==Background and education== Percy was born at 25 Grosvenor Square, Mayfair,<ref name="1901census">''1901 England Census''</ref> into a noble family: he was the seventh and youngest son of Henry Percy, 7th Duke of Northumberland, and Lady Edith, daughter of George Campbell, 8th Duke of Argyll. Henry Percy, Earl Percy, and Alan Percy, 8th Duke of Northumberland, were his elder brothers. His uncle, the ninth Duke of Argyll, was married to Princess Louise, daughter of Queen Victoria.<ref>{{cite book |title=Genealogical and Heraldic Dictionary of the Peerage and Baronetage of the British Empire |date=1907 |publisher=Burke's Peerage Limited. |page=1265 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UxJXAAAAYAAJ&dq=Eustace+Sutherland+Campbell+March+21,+1887+burkes&pg=PA1265 |access-date=30 August 2024 |language=en}}</ref> A niece Lady Diana Percy later married the sixth Duke of Sutherland.
He was educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford. He won the Stanhope essay prize in 1907 and took first-class honours in Modern History.<ref name="timesobit"/>
==Political career== Percy served in the Diplomatic Service between 1911 and 1919. From 1919–22, he represented Holborn on the London County Council as a Municipal Reform Party councillor.<ref>{{cite book|title=Achievement: A Short History of the London County Council|publisher=Longman's|year=1965|page=276|author=W Eric Jackson}}</ref> In 1921, he was elected Member of Parliament (MP) for Hastings, a seat he held until 1937.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.leighrayment.com/commons/Hcommons2.htm |title=leighrayment.com House of Commons: Haslemere to Herefordshire |access-date=10 September 2009 |url-status=usurped |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101029234340/http://www.leighrayment.com/commons/Hcommons2.htm |archive-date=29 October 2010 }}</ref> In March 1923, he was appointed Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Education by Bonar Law. When Stanley Baldwin became Prime Minister in May of the same year, Percy was moved to the post of Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health, which he remained until the fall of the government in January 1924.
When the Conservatives returned to power in November 1924, he was appointed President of the Board of Education by Baldwin, with a seat in the cabinet,<ref>{{London Gazette |issue=32989 |date=7 November 1924 |page=8042 }}</ref> and sworn of the Privy Council.<ref>{{London Gazette |issue=32989 |date=7 November 1924 |page=8041 }}</ref> He continued as head of the Board of Education until the government fell in June 1929.
Percy did not serve in the National Government of Ramsay MacDonald between 1931 and 1935, but when Baldwin returned as Prime Minister in June 1935 he again became a member of the cabinet as Minister without Portfolio, a post he held until 1936. Given charge of policy direction for the government in the latter role, he was often dubbed the "Minister for Thought" by the Press. In the 1930s, he called for regional government for the North East of England, specifically wishing to be the minister for the region.{{Citation needed|date=September 2009}}
In his 1944 Riddell Lecture, Percy made a call for the law to be changed radically to recognise companies as associations of productive employees, rather than as associations of shareholders. These were his words: "Here is the most important challenge to political invention ever offered to the jurist or the statesman. The human association which in fact produces and distributes wealth, the association of workmen, managers, technicians and directors is not an association recognised by law. The association which the law does recognise – the association of shareholders, creditors and directors – is incapable of producing and distributing and is not expected to perform these functions. We have to give law to the real association and withdraw meaningless privilege from the imaginary one."<ref>Quoted in ''Jobs and Fairness'' by Robert Oakeshott, published by Michael Russell, 2000.</ref>
In 1945, Percy chaired the committee on Higher Technological Education that resulted in the Percy Report.<ref>{{cite news | work=The Times | date=7 November 1945 | page=2, col B | title=Trained Men For Industry Plan To Provide More Technologists }}</ref> He also chaired a Royal Commission that reviewed mental health legislation in the 1950s and was Rector of King's College, Durham (now Newcastle University) between 1937 and 1951, in which role he also alternated in the post of Vice-Chancellor of Durham University.<ref name="DU Records">{{cite web|url=http://reed.dur.ac.uk/xtf/view?docId=ead/uni/undc.xml#qxj-396|at=Vice-Chancellor and Warden|title= Durham University Records: Central Administration and Officers|access-date=11 March 2016|website=Durham University Archives}}</ref> In 1953 he was raised to the peerage as '''Baron Percy of Newcastle''', of Etchingham in the County of Sussex.<ref>{{London Gazette |issue=39798 |date=13 March 1953 |page=1443 }}</ref>
==Family== Percy married Stella Katherine, daughter of Major-General Laurence George Drummond, in 1918. They had two daughters. He died in April 1958, aged 71, in Etchingham. As he had no sons the barony became extinct on his death.<ref name="timesobit"/>
==References== {{reflist}}
== External links == * {{Hansard-contribs | lord-eustace-percy | Lord Eustace Percy }} * {{PM20|FID=pe/013412}}
{{s-start}} {{s-par|uk}} {{succession box | title = Member of Parliament for Hastings | years = 1921 – 1937 | before = Laurance Lyon | after = Maurice Hely-Hutchinson }} {{s-off}} {{succession box | title = Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Education | years = 1923 | before = Herbert Lewis | after = The Earl of Onslow}} {{succession box | title = Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health | years = 1923–1924 | before = The Earl of Onslow | after = Arthur Greenwood}} {{succession box | title = President of the Board of Education | years = 1924–1929 | before = Charles Trevelyan | after = Sir Charles Trevelyan, Bt }} {{succession box | title = Minister without Portfolio | years = 1935–1936 | before = None | after = None }} {{s-aca}} {{succession box | title= Vice-Chancellor <br />of the University of Durham | with = Sir James Fitzjames Duff | years = 1937–1952 | before = Sir Robert Alfred Bolam | after = Sir James Fitzjames Duff<br />Charles Ion Carr Bosanquet}} {{s-reg|uk}} {{s-new | creation }} {{s-ttl | title = Baron Percy of Newcastle | years = 1953–1958 }} {{s-non | reason = Extinct}} {{s-end}}
{{Secretaries of State for Education}} {{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Percy, Eustace Sutherland Campbell, 1st Baron Percy Of Newcastle}} Category:1887 births Category:1958 deaths 1 Category:Conservative Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies Category:Members of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom Category:UK MPs 1918–1922 Category:UK MPs 1922–1923 Category:UK MPs 1923–1924 Category:UK MPs 1924–1929 Category:UK MPs 1929–1931 Category:UK MPs 1931–1935 Category:UK MPs 1935–1945 Category:UK MPs who were granted peerages Category:British secretaries of state for education Category:Engineering education in the United Kingdom Category:Younger sons of dukes Eustace Percy, 1st Baron Percy of Newcastle Category:Members of London County Council Category:Municipal Reform Party politicians Category:James Tait Black Memorial Prize recipients Category:People educated at Eton College Category:Hereditary barons created by Elizabeth II Category:People from Mayfair Category:Vice-chancellors and wardens of Durham University