Alfred Mond, 1st Baron Melchett

{{Short description|British industrialist and politician (1868–1930)}} {{Use British English|date=August 2014}} {{Use dmy dates|date=August 2014}} {{Infobox officeholder | honorific_prefix = The Right Honourable | name = The Lord Melchett | honorific_suffix = PC FRS DL | image = Alfred Mond.jpg | image_size = 200px | alt = | caption = | office = Deputy Leader of the National Liberal Party | term_start = 20 November 1922 | term_end = 13 November 1923 | leader = David Lloyd George | predecessor = Winston Churchill | successor = Party merged with Liberals | office1 = Minister of Health | term_start1 = 1 April 1921 | term_end1 = 19 October 1922 | prime_minister1 = David Lloyd George | predecessor1 = Christopher Addison | successor1 = Sir Arthur Griffith-Boscawen | office2 = First Commissioner of Works | term_start2 = 10 December 1916 | term_end2 = 1 April 1921 | prime_minister2 = David Lloyd George | predecessor2 = Lewis Vernon Harcourt | successor2 = The Earl of Crawford | office3 = Member of Parliament for Carmarthen | term_start3 = 14 August 1924 | term_end3 = 5 June 1928 | predecessor3 = Ellis Ellis-Griffith | successor3 = William Nathaniel Jones | office4 = Member of Parliament for Swansea West {{small|Swansea (1910–1918)}} | term_start4 = 15 January 1910 | term_end4 = 6 December 1923 | predecessor4 = George Newnes | successor4 = Howel Samuel | office5 = Member of Parliament for Chester | term_start5 = 8 February 1906 | term_end5 = 15 January 1910 | predecessor5 = Robert Yerburgh | successor5 = Robert Yerburgh | birth_name = Alfred Moritz Mond | birth_date = {{birth-date|23 October 1868}} | birth_place = Farnworth, Lancashire, England, UK | death_date = {{death-date and age|27 December 1930|23 October 1868}} | death_place = London, England, UK | party = Conservative (1926–1930) | other_party = Liberal (Before 1916, 1923–1926) Coalition Liberal (1916–1922) National Liberal (1922–1923) | spouse = Violet Goetze (d. 1945) | relations = | children = 4, including Henry Mond, 2nd Baron Melchett | father = Ludwig Mond | mother = Frieda Löwenthal | relatives = | education = | alma_mater = St John's College, Cambridge University of Edinburgh | occupation = | profession = }} '''Alfred Moritz Mond, 1st Baron Melchett''', PC, FRS, DL (23 October 1868 – 27 December 1930), known as '''Sir Alfred Mond, Bt''' between 1910 and 1928, was a British industrialist, financier and politician. In his later life he became an active Zionist.

==Early life and education== Mond was born in Farnworth, near Prescot, at that time in Lancashire. He was the younger son of Ludwig Mond, a chemist and industrialist who had emigrated from Germany, and his wife Frieda, née Löwenthal, both of Jewish heritage. He was educated at Cheltenham College and St. John's College, Cambridge,<ref>{{acad|id=MNT886AM|name=Mond, Alfred Moritz}}</ref> but failed his natural sciences tripos. He then studied law at the University of Edinburgh and was called to the bar by the Inner Temple in 1894.<ref name="dnb">Greenaway, Frank (2004) 'Mond family ({{abbr|''per''.|in the period}} 1867–1973)', ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press. [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/51124] Retrieved on 9 March 2007.</ref><ref>{{cite magazine|title=Mond, Alfred Moritz|magazine=Who's Who|year=1907|volume= 59|page=1241|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yEcuAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA1241}}</ref>

==Business career== After his law studies, he joined his father's business Brunner Mond & Company as a director, later becoming its managing director. His other directorships included the Westminster Bank and the Industrial Finance Investment Corporation.{{Citation needed|date=January 2025}}

One of his major business achievements came in 1926, when he worked to create the merger of four companies to form Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI), one of the world's largest industrial corporations at the time.<ref name="dnb"/> He became its first chairman.<ref>{{citation |url=http://picture.stockton.gov.uk/photos/t4010-t396.aspx |title=ICI's first chairman Sir Alfred Mond |access-date=25 June 2007 |publisher=Picture Stockton }}{{dead link|date=November 2017 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref>

Mond was also managing director of his father's other company, the Mond Nickel Company, of which he inherited the majority of shares. He was an active director from the outset, and amongst other growth projects he commissioned the Coniston smelter and the Acton, London nickel carbonyl refinery. He agreed to a proposal of Robert C. Stanley addressing issues at the Frood Mine and recommended the merger of his company into Stanley's International Nickel Company in 1929. Thereafter he sat as a director of the combined company.<ref name="thompson60">{{cite book |last1=Thompson |first1=John Fairfield |last2=Beasley |first2=Norman |title=For the Years to Come: A Story of International Nickel of Canada |date=1960 |publisher=Longmans, Green & Co |location=Toronto}}</ref>

==Political career== Mond was also involved in politics and sat as Liberal Member of Parliament for Chester from 1906 to 1910, for Swansea from 1910 to 1918 and for Swansea West from 1918 to 1923. He served in the coalition government of David Lloyd George as First Commissioner of Works from 1916 to 1921, and as Minister of Health (with a seat in the cabinet) from 1921 to 1922. After losing his seat at the 1923 general election, he returned to Parliament as a Liberal for Carmarthen at a by-election in August 1924, holding the seat until his elevation to the peerage in 1928. Although a supporter of the "New Liberalism" in his early political career and a "vocal proponent of constructive social reform" in the postwar government,<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.liberalhistory.org.uk/history/mond-sir-alfred-lord-melchett/|title=Sir Alfred Mond (Lord Melchett), 1868-1930|website=Liberal History|date=20 May 2012}}</ref> Mond became a Conservative in January 1926 after falling out with Lloyd George over the former Prime Minister's controversial plans to nationalise agricultural land.<ref name="dnb"/><ref>Bolitho, Alfred Mond: First Lord Melchett; Carmarthen Record Office, Dynevor Papers"</ref><ref>{{cite news |title=Sir Alfred Mond - Letter to Carmathen Liberals |url=https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000337/19260126/040/0003 |work=Coventry Evening Telegraph |date=26 January 1926}}</ref>

Mond was created a Baronet, of Hartford Hill in Great Budworth in the County of Chester, in 1910,<ref>{{London Gazette |issue=28400 |date=26 July 1910 |pages=5391–5392 }}</ref> and was admitted to the Privy Council in 1913.<ref name="dnb"/><ref>{{London Gazette |issue=29728 |date=13 June 1913 |page=4187 }}</ref> In 1928 he was raised to the peerage as Baron Melchett, of Landford in the County of Southampton.<ref name="dnb"/><ref>{{London Gazette |issue=33395 |date=19 June 1928 |page=4180 }}</ref>

=== Mondism === In the aftermath of the 1926 General Strike, Mond led efforts to establish cooperation between workers (represented by trades unions and the General Council of the TUC) and the large employers; this short-lived initiative became known as {{Ill|Mondism|qid=Q18452141}}.<ref>{{cite book |last=Gallacher |first=W. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=p5cEAAAAMAAJ |title=The Rolling of the Thunder |publisher=Lawrence & Wishart |year=1947 |page=103 |author-link=Willie Gallacher (politician) |access-date=19 September 2022}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Glossary of Terms: Mo |url=https://marxists.wikis.cc/glossary/terms/m/o.htm |access-date=2022-09-19 |website=Marxists Internet Archive Encyclopedia}}</ref>

==Benefactions, Zionism and honours== [[File:תמונה 1159.jpg|thumb|Statue of Lord Melchett, Tel Mond, Israel]] [[Image:Alfred Mond cartoon from Punch - Project Gutenberg eText 16707.png|thumb|'''The Iconoclast''' Sir Alfred Mond: "I'm sorry to have to disturb Your Majesty, but, owing to the shortage of sites—" George III: "Shortage of sights, indeed!" Cartoon from ''Punch'', 18 August 1920]] Mond's father had bequeathed a collection of old master paintings to the National Gallery, and Alfred provided housing for them in 1924. In 1929 he provided land in Chelsea for the Chelsea Health Society.<ref name="dnb"/>

An enthusiastic Zionist, in 1920 Mond donated ten thousand pounds to Vladimir Jabotinsky.<ref>Segev, Tom (2018 - 2019 translation Haim Watzman) ''A State at Any Cost. The Life of David Ben-Gurion.'' Apollo. {{ISBN|9-781789-544633}}. p. 166</ref> The following year he visited Palestine with Chaim Weizmann. He contributed money to the Jewish Colonization Corporation for Palestine and wrote for Zionist publications.<ref name="dnb"/> He became President of the British Zionist Foundation and made financial contributions to Zionist causes.<ref>{{citation |url=https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1yz8B3IPltmZ0RkdXRhQ3JLZFU/edit?usp=sharing |title=Alfred Mond (Lord Melchett): Great Zionist Leader |access-date=25 June 2007 |last=Weintraub |first=Bob |publisher=The Israel Chemical Society |page=6 }}</ref> Melchett founded the town of Tel Mond, now in Israel.<ref>{{citation|url=http://www.sarasotasistercities.org/Tel_mond.html |title=Tel Mond, Israel |access-date=25 June 2007 |publisher=Sarasota Sister Cities Association |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120403143814/http://www.sarasotasistercities.org/Tel_mond.html |archive-date=3 April 2012 }}</ref> He also started building what is now one of the few private houses on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, now known as Villa Melchett. Tel Aviv and several other Israeli cities have a Melchett Street commemorating him.

One of Mond's most enduring contributions to Zionism did not come through direct political means but through his enthusiastic and active support of Pinhas Rutenberg, to whom the British Government granted exclusive concessions to produce and distribute electricity in Palestine. Mond sat on the Board of the Palestine Electric Company and promoted the case of the company in London's political and industrial circles.<ref>Shamir, Ronen (2013) Current Flow: The Electrification of Palestine. Stanford: Stanford University Press, pp. 121, 127, 134 </ref>

Mond was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1928 and received a number of honorary degrees from Oxford, Paris and other universities.<ref name="dnb"/>

==Personal life== In 1894 Mond married Violet Goetze and they had one son, Henry Ludwig, and three daughters, Eva Violet, Mary Angela, and Norah Jena. Mond died in his London home in 1930, and his son succeeded in the barony.<ref name="dnb"/>

==Publications== * ''Industry and Politics'' (1927) * ''Imperial Economic Unity'' (1930)

==Literary references== Mond is mentioned in T. S. Eliot's 1920 poem ''A Cooking Egg''.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.bartleby.com/199/16.html |title=4. A Cooking Egg |website=www.bartleby.com}}</ref> He is also – along with the Turkish leader Mustafa Kemal Atatürk – widely considered to be the inspiration behind Mustapha Mond, one of the ten world controllers in Aldous Huxley's 1932 novel ''Brave New World''.<ref>{{cite journal |jstor=4239919 |title=Aldous Huxley's Bokanovsky ("Bokanowski" de Aldous Huxley) |journal=Science Fiction Studies |volume=16 |issue=1 |pages=85–89|last1=Sexton |first1=James |year=1989 }}</ref>

==Coat of arms== {{Infobox COA wide |name= Alfred Mond, 1st Baron Melchett<ref>{{cite book |year=2002 |title=Debrett's peerage and baronetage 2003 |publisher=Debrett's Peerage Ltd. | page=1088 |url=https://archive.org/details/debrettspeerageb0000unse_r0m8/page/n1239}}</ref> |image = Coat of arms of Mond, Baron Melchett.svg |image size = 250px |notes = Coat of arms of the Mond family |coronet = A coronet of a Baron |crest = A Demi-Bear holding between the paws a Fountain both proper. |Quarterly = 1st and 4th, Gules a Demi-Lion rampant argent between in chief a Decrescent and an Increscent and in base a Crescent all Or on a Chief Argent an Eagle displayed between two Mullets Sable (Mond); 2nd and 3rd, Azure on a Pile between three Mullets Argent an Eagle displayed Sable (Lowenthal). |escutcheon = Quarterly: 1st and 4th, Gules a Demi-Lion rampant argent between in chief a Decrescent and an Increscent and in base a Crescent all Or on a Chief Argent an Eagle displayed between two Mullets Sable (Mond); 2nd and 3rd, Azure on a Pile between three Mullets Argent an Eagle displayed Sable (Lowenthal). |supporters = Dexter: a Doctor of Science of the University of Oxford holding in the exterior hand a Chemical Measure Glass; Sinister: a Labourer holding in the exterior hand a Pick resting on the shoulder, all proper. |motto = Make Yourself Necessary }}

==See also== *Ludwig Mond Award *Melchett Medal *Mond gas

==References== {{Reflist}}

== Further reading == * Bolitho, Hector. ''Alfred Mond: First Baron Melchett. A Biography'' (Martin Secker, 1933)

== External links == *{{Hansard-contribs | sir-alfred-mond | Alfred Mond }} *{{NPG name}} * {{PM20|FID=pe/019752}}

{{s-start}} {{s-par|uk}} {{succession box | title = Member of Parliament for Chester | years = 1906–1910 | before = Robert Yerburgh | after = Robert Yerburgh }} {{s-bef | before = Sir George Newnes, Bt }} {{s-ttl | title = Member of Parliament for Swansea | years = 1910–1918 }} {{s-non | reason = Constituency abolished }}

{{s-new | constituency}} {{s-ttl | title = Member of Parliament for Swansea West | years = 1918–1923 }} {{s-aft | after = Howel Walter Samuel }} {{succession box | title = Member of Parliament for Carmarthen | years = 1924–1928 | before = Sir Ellis Ellis-Griffith, Bt | after = William Nathaniel Jones }} {{s-off}} {{succession box | title = First Commissioner of Works | years = 1916–1921 | before = Lewis Vernon Harcourt | after = The Earl of Crawford }} {{succession box | title = Minister of Health | years = 1921–1922 | before = Christopher Addison | after = Sir Arthur Griffith-Boscawen }} {{s-ppo}} {{s-bef|before=Winston Churchill}} {{s-ttl|title=Deputy Leader of the National Liberal Party | years = 1922–1923}} {{s-non|reason = Party merged with the Liberals}} {{s-reg|uk}} {{s-new| Creation}} {{s-ttl| title=Baron Melchett | years=1928–1930}} {{s-aft | after=Henry Mond}} {{s-reg|uk-bt}} {{s-new|Creation}} {{s-ttl|title=Baronet '''(of Hartford Hill)''' | years=1910–1930}} {{s-aft|after=Henry Mond}} {{s-end}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mond, Alfred, 1st Baron Melchett}} Category:1868 births Category:1930 deaths Category:19th-century English Jews Category:20th-century English Jews Category:20th-century English businesspeople Category:Alumni of St John's College, Cambridge Category:Alumni of the University of Edinburgh 1 Category:Burials at St Pancras and Islington Cemetery Category:Conservative Party (UK) MPs for Welsh constituencies Category:Deputy lieutenants of Cheshire Category:British Ashkenazi Jews Category:English people of German-Jewish descent Category:Fellows of the Royal Society (Statute 12) Category:Imperial Chemical Industries executives Category:Jewish British politicians Category:Liberal Party (UK) MPs for Welsh constituencies Category:Members of the Inner Temple Category:Liberal Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies Category:Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for Carmarthenshire constituencies Category:Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for Swansea constituencies Category:Members of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom Alfred Category:People educated at Cheltenham College Category:People from Farnworth Category:People from Widnes Category:UK MPs 1906–1910 Category:UK MPs 1910 Category:UK MPs 1910–1918 Category:UK MPs 1918–1922 Category:UK MPs 1922–1923 Category:UK MPs 1924–1929 Category:UK MPs who were granted peerages Category:Tel Mond Category:National Liberal Party (UK, 1922) politicians Category:Barons created by George V Category:British fellows of the Royal Society