Angus McDonnell

Who was Angus McDonnell?

The Honourable Angus McDonnell CB CMG was a British engineer, diplomat and Conservative Party politician.

He was the second son of William Randal McDonnell, 6th Earl of Antrim and Louisa McDonnell, Countess of Antrim. Following education at Eton College, he briefly entered business as a merchant banker with Morgan Grenfell. He subsequently moved to the United States of America, where he worked for Chiswell Langhorne constructing railways in Virginia. McDonnell became a close friend of Langhorne's daughter Nancy Astor.

With the outbreak of the First World War, he served with the railway troops reserve of the 1st Canadian Division, constructing railways behind the lines of the Western Front, rising to the rank of colonel.

He returned to the United Kingdom, where he was chosen by the Conservative Party to contest the constituency of Dartford at the 1924 general election. He won the seat, narrowly defeating the sitting Labour Party member of parliament, John Edmund Mills. McDonnell had little interest in parliament, and did not defend the seat in 1929, returning to his business activities.