Wyndham Portal, 1st Viscount Portal

Who was Wyndham Portal, 1st Viscount Portal?

Wyndham Raymond Portal, 1st Viscount Portal PC GCMG DSO MVO was a British politician.

The eldest son of Sir William Wyndam Portal, 2nd Baronet, and Florence Elizabeth Mary Glyn CBE, daughter of Hon. St Leger Glyn, 2nd son of George Glyn, 1st Baron Wolverton, he was educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford.

In 1909 he married Lady Louise Rosemary Kathleen Virginia Cairns, MBE, only child of Arthur Cairns, 2nd Earl Cairns.

He was commissioned into the Hampshire Yeomanry in 1903, was promoted Lieutenant in 1905, and transferred to the 9th Lancers later the same year. He transferred to the 1st Life Guards as a Second Lieutenant in 1908 and was promoted Lieutenant again later the same year, but left the Army in 1911. He rejoined the Hampshire Yeomanry in 1914 and served in World War I. He was promoted Captain in 1914 while serving as adjutant of the Royal 1st Devon Yeomanry. Transferring back to the Life Guards in 1915, he was promoted Lieutenant-Colonel in 1916 when he took command of the Household Battalion. In 1917 he was awarded the Distinguished Service Order and appointed a Member of the Royal Victorian Order. He relinquished command of the battalion in 1918 and reverted to the rank of Captain, but was soon promoted Major and attached to the Machine Gun Corps as a battalion commander, again with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. He resigned his commission in 1919.