John Cavendish, 5th Baron Chesham

Who was John Cavendish, 5th Baron Chesham?

John Charles Compton Cavendish, 5th Baron Chesham, PC, was a British Conservative politician.

A member of the Cavendish family headed by the Duke of Devonshire, Chesham was the son of John Compton Cavendish, 4th Baron Chesham and Margot Mills. He fought in the Second World War as a Captain in the Army, also briefly serving as an Air Observation Post pilot with No. 664 Squadron RCAF. Chesham took his seat in the House of Lords on his father's death in 1952, and later served in the Conservative administrations of Harold Macmillan and Sir Alec Douglas-Home as Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport from 1959 to 1964. The latter year he was also admitted to the Privy Council. Chesham was later Chairman of the International Road Federation, Executive Vice-Chairman of the Royal Automobile Club from 1966 to 1970 and President of the British Road Federation from 1966 to 1972.

Lord Chesham married Mary Edmunds Marshall, daughter of David Gregory Marshall, in 1937. He died in December 1989, aged 73, and was succeeded in the barony by his son Nicholas Charles Cavendish.