Ivor Guest, 1st Baron Wimborne

Who was Ivor Guest, 1st Baron Wimborne?

Ivor Bertie Guest, 1st Baron Wimborne was a Welsh industrialist.

Sir Ivor Bertie Guest was born at Dowlais, near Merthyr Tydfil, the son of Lady Charlotte Guest, translator of the Mabinogion, and Sir John Josiah Guest, owner of the world's largest iron foundry, Dowlais Ironworks. Educated at Harrow School in Middlesex, he went on to gain a Master of Arts degree from Trinity College, Cambridge in 1856.

Guest married Lady Cornelia Henrietta Maria Spencer-Churchill, daughter of John Spencer-Churchill, 7th Duke of Marlborough, on 25 May 1868 and was thus an uncle-by-marriage of Sir Winston Churchill.

His middle name was from his mother's family, the Earls of Abingdon, descended from a Tudor courtier who married the Dowager Duchess of Suffolk, and herself suo jure Baroness Willoughby de Eresby.

He was regarded as a snob and social climber so much so that he was lampooned in Vanity Fair as "the paying Guest".

He held the office of High Sheriff of Glamorgan in 1862 and was the mayor of Poole from 1896-1897. In 1879 he rebuilt the real tennis court at Canford.

Guest succeeded his father to his baronetcy following his death in 1852. He was elevated to the peerage in 1880 as Baron Wimborne, of Canford Magna in the County of Dorset, on Disraeli's initiative.