Hugh Molson, Baron Molson

Who was Hugh Molson, Baron Molson?

Hugh Molson, Baron Molson PC was a British Conservative politician and member of the Molson family of Montreal.

Born in Chelmsford, Essex, the only surviving son of Major John Elsdale Molson, Member of Parliament for Gainsborough from 1918–23, and Mary Leeson, he was educated at the Royal Naval College, Osborne and Dartmouth, at Lancing, and New College, Oxford. He was President of the Oxford Union in 1925. He became a Barrister-at-Law at the Inner Temple in 1931. He worked as Political Secretary of the Associated Chambers of Commerce of India from 1926-29.

He was commissioned 4 March 1939 and served with 36th Searchlight Regiment, Royal Artillery from 1939–41 and was Staff Captain 11 AA Division from 1941-42.

He was unsuccessful Conservative candidate in Aberdare in 1929, and sat as Member of Parliament for Doncaster from 1931–35 and for High Peak, Derbyshire from 1939-61. He was elected unopposed at the High Peak by-election, October 1939, after the death of Alfred Law. He held Ministerial office as Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Works from 1951–53, Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation from November 1953-January 1957, and as Minister of Works from 1957-October 1959. He was a Member of the Monckton Commission on Rhodesia and Nyasaland in 1960, and Chairman of the Commission of Privy Counsellors on the dispute between Buganda and Bunyoro in 1962.