{{Short description|British politician (1919–2020)}} {{Other people|Alun Jones}} {{Use British English|date=January 2016}} {{Use dmy dates|date=May 2020}} {{Infobox officeholder | honorific_prefix = Lieutenant-Colonel The Right Honourable | name = The Lord Chalfont | honorific_suffix = {{postnominals|country=GBR|size=100|OBE|MC|PC}} | image = Bundesarchiv B 145 Bild-F021984-0013, Auswärtiges Amt, Staatsminister Großbritannien.jpg | caption = Chalfont during a visit to West Germany in 1966 | office1 = Minister of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs | monarch1 = Elizabeth II | prime_minister1 = Harold Wilson | term_start1 = 23 October 1964 | term_end1 = 19 June 1970 | predecessor1 = Peter Thomas | successor1 = Joseph Godber | office2 = Member of the House of Lords | status2 = Lord Temporal | term_label2 = Life peerage | term_start2 = 11 November 1964 | term_end2 = 10 November 2015 | birth_name = Alun Arthur Gwynne Jones | birth_date = {{birth date|1919|12|05|df=y}} | birth_place = Monmouthshire, Wales | death_date = {{death date and age |2020|01|10|1919|12|05|df=yes}} | death_place = | party = Labour<br />Crossbencher<ref name=UKparl>{{cite web|title=Lord Chalfont|url=http://www.parliament.uk/biographies/lords/lord-chalfont/3309|publisher=UK Parliament|accessdate=5 October 2014}}</ref> | occupation = Politician<br /> Lord Provest | module = {{Infobox military person|embed=yes | allegiance = United Kingdom | branch = {{army|United Kingdom}} | service_years = 1939–1961 | rank = Lieutenant Colonel | service_number = 156400 | unit = South Wales Borderers | battles = {{ubl|Second World War |{{*}}Burma Campaign| Malayan Emergency}} | awards = Officer of the Order of the British Empire<br />Military Cross<br />Efficiency Medal }} }}
'''Alun Arthur Gwynne Jones, Baron Chalfont''', {{postnominals|country=GBR|size=100|sep=,|OBE|MC|PC}} (5 December 1919 – 10 January 2020) was a British Army officer, politician and historian.
==Early life and military career== Gwynne Jones<!--use his surname to refer to him pre-peerage--> was born in modest circumstances in Monmouthshire.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.thetimes.com/uk/article/lord-chalfont-obituary-r5r3mgz8d|title=Lord Chalfont obituary|date=2020-01-14|work=The Times|access-date=2020-01-15|language=en|issn=0140-0460}}</ref> He was educated at West Monmouth School, and subsequently at the School of Slavonic Studies at the University of London.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://thepeerage.com/p21372.htm#i213720|title=Person Page|website=thepeerage.com}}</ref> Joining the South Wales Borderers when the Second World War broke out, he was commissioned a second lieutenant on 2 November 1940.<ref>{{London Gazette|issue=34995 |supp=y|page=6624|date=15 November 1940}}</ref> From 1941 to 1944 he fought in Burma alongside the Welsh poet Alun Lewis.<ref>See ''The Fragile Universe: A Portrait of Alun Lewis'', dir. by John Ormond (Cardiff: BBC Wales, 1969)</ref> On 1 January 1943, he received an emergency commission in the Royal Armoured Corps as a war-substantive lieutenant, with the same rank in the South Wales Borderers from 1 April.<ref>{{London Gazette|issue=36085 |supp=y|page=3104|date=6 July 1943}}</ref><ref>{{London Gazette|issue=36182 |supp=y|page=4238|date=21 September 1943}}</ref> After the war, Gwynne Jones remained in the Army, receiving a substantive lieutenant's commission in the South Wales Borderers on 24 August 1946 (with seniority from 5 June 1942), and was promoted to captain on 5 December.<ref>{{London Gazette|issue=37698 |supp=y|page=4238|date=20 August 1946}}</ref><ref>{{London Gazette|issue=37823 |supp=y|page=6168|date=17 December 1946}}</ref> He was awarded the Efficiency Medal in October 1950.<ref>{{London Gazette|issue=39039 |supp=y|page=5082|date=13 October 1950}}</ref> Promoted to major on 5 December 1953,<ref>{{London Gazette|issue=40033 |supp=y|page=6588|date=1 December 1953}}</ref> Gwynne Jones took part in a series of anti-terrorist campaigns, and was decorated with the Military Cross (MC) in August 1957 for commanding a company which fought in the Malaysian jungles during the Malayan Emergency, after his involvement in a series of ambushes against communist insurgents. Gwynne Jones later stated, "I was lucky enough to carry out some successful ones. The citation reads as follows:
{{Blockquote|For gallantry and relentless determination during a period of eighteen months in command of his company in jungle operations. By his personal share in difficult, hazardous and successful operations, he set a fine example to those around him.<ref>{{London Gazette|issue=41257 |supp=y|page=7428|date=17 December 1957}}</ref>}}
Gwynne Jones was brevetted to lieutenant-colonel on 1 July 1960,<ref>{{London Gazette|issue=42112 |supp=y|page=5451|date=5 August 1960}}</ref> and was decorated as an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 1961 Birthday Honours.<ref>{{London Gazette|issue=42370 |supp=y|page=4149|date=2 June 1961}}</ref> He retired from the army on 30 June 1961 with the honorary rank of lieutenant-colonel.<ref>{{London Gazette|issue=42400 |supp=y|page=4838|date=27 June 1961}}</ref>
==Political life== Entering politics, he was a minister in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office from 1964 to 1970 and from 1964 was appointed to the Privy Council.
He was created '''Baron Chalfont''', of Llantarnam in the County of Monmouthshire on 11 November 1964.<ref>{{London Gazette| issue=43492 |page=9821 | date=17 November 1964 }}</ref> Following the death of Lord Shawcross in 2003, his life peerage was the most senior extant, and Lord Chalfont was placed higher in the order of precedence than four hereditary barons whose inherited titles were created after his.
On 27 March 1967, in the House of Lords, Chalfont became the spokesman for Harold Wilson's Labour Party Government's attempt to divest Britain of the Falkland Islands. In November 1968 Chalfont travelled to the Falklands to canvass the people, and try to persuade them of the merit of becoming Argentine citizens. He was sent away in no doubt that the islanders wished to remain British, but, on his return to Britain, he reported, "I do not believe that the Falkland Islands can continue to exist for many years, as they are presently constituted. I believe one day that the Falkland Islands may be prepared to choose Argentine sovereignty. We must at all costs avoid giving the impression that we want to get rid of them, since that would set up precisely the reaction we would want to avoid."<ref>[https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2001/nov/29/falklands.argentina Secret plan to persuade 'reactionary' Falklands to accept Argentinian rule], ''The Guardian'', 29 November 2001</ref>
Chalfont resigned from the Labour Party in the early 1970s. He declared his resignation a "decision of personal and political principle". In October 1974, just after Labour won a second general election that year, he stated in an interview with the BBC journalist Robin Day: "I had hoped for a realignment of the politics of the radical left in this country and I believed when I left the Labour Party that a great success by the Liberal Party in this election could have helped that forward". In 1979 Lord Chalfont was one of a group of ex-Labour politicians who defected to support the Conservatives and Margaret Thatcher at the general election.<ref name="GH29April1979p1">{{cite news |last1=Russell |first1=William |title=Ex-Labour MP defects to Tories |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=GGgVawPscysC&dat=19790430&printsec=frontpage&hl=en |access-date=24 June 2021 |work=The Glasgow Herald |date=30 April 1979 |page=1}}</ref> He contributed an article on ''The Strategic Defence Initiative'' to the Conservative Monday Club's October 1985 Conservative Party Conference issue of their newspaper, ''Right Ahead''.
Chalfont was the author of several military history books on subjects including the Napoleonic Wars.
Chalfont was a former chairman of the Radio Authority which regulated commercial radio in the UK until its role was absorbed by Ofcom. He set up the Institute for the Study of Terrorism with Jillian Becker in 1985.
Lord Chalfont retired from the House of Lords on 10 November 2015.
==Personal life== In 1948 Gwynne Jones married Mona Mitchell (who died on 31 May 2008), the daughter of Harry Douglas Mitchell, and together they had one child, a daughter. He turned 100 on 5 December 2019 and died the following month, on 10 January 2020.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.thetimes.com/uk/article/lord-chalfont-obituary-r5r3mgz8d|title=Lord Chalfont obituary|website=The Times|date=14 January 2020 |access-date=14 January 2020}}</ref>
==Publications== *1976: ''Montgomery of Alamein''. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. *1979: ''Waterloo: Battle of Three Armies''. Anglo-Dutch by William Seymour; French by Jacques Champagne; Prussian by E. Kaulbach; prologue & epilogue by Lord Chalfont; edited by Lord Chalfont. London: Sidgwick & Jackson. {{ISBN|978-0283987489}}. *1985: ''Star Wars: suicide or survival?'' London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. *1987: ''Defence of the Realm''. London: Collins. *1989: ''By God's Will: A Portrait of the Sultan of Brunei''. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. *2000: ''The Shadow of my Hand''. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson (autobiography).
==Arms== {{Infobox COA wide |image=centre|150px centre|200px |escutcheon = Gules a sword point downwards Proper pommel and hilt Or within an orle of two branches of olive fructed Gold. |crest = A dragon sejant Gules supporting a column Sable charged with nine bars Argent the capital also Argent. |supporters = Dexter a private of the Grenadier Company 24th Foot (South Wales Borderers) in the uniform of circa 1751 supporting with the exterior hand a bamboo cane leaved Proper sinister a herald vested in a tabard of the arms Proper and holding in the exterior hand a sprig of olive fructed Or. |motto = Cedant Arma Togae (May Weapons Yield To The Toga) <ref>{{cite book|title=Debrett's Peerage |date=2003 |page=296}}</ref>}}
==References== {{reflist}}
==External links== *{{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20080608044721/http://www.leighrayment.com/peers/peersC3.htm Leigh Rayment's Peerage]}} *[http://www.parliament.uk/biographies/lords/lord-chalfont/3309 UK Parliament] * Interview with Lord Chalfont BBC October 1974. Starts at 2min 30 sec on clip. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XVUvCalI_g - YouTube]. *{{NPG name|id=86431}} {{Authority control}} {{s-start}} {{s-hon}} {{s-bef|before=The Lord Shawcross}} {{s-ttl|title=Senior life peer|years=2003–2020}} {{s-aft|after=The Baroness Masham of Ilton}} {{s-end}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Chalfont, Alun Gwynne Jones, Baron}} Category:1919 births Category:2020 deaths Category:British military historians Category:Crossbench life peers Category:Labour Party (UK) life peers Category:Members of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom Category:Ministers in the Wilson governments, 1964–1970 Category:Officers of the Order of the British Empire Category:Members of the Academy of the Kingdom of Morocco Category:Welsh men centenarians Category:People educated at West Monmouth School Category:Place of birth missing Category:Place of death missing Category:Recipients of the Military Cross Category:South Wales Borderers officers Category:Welsh politicians Category:British Army personnel of World War II Category:Royal Armoured Corps officers Category:British Army personnel of the Malayan Emergency Category:Life peers created by Elizabeth II Category:Peers retired under the House of Lords Reform Act 2014 Category:Military personnel from Monmouthshire