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Lord
Kylsant - Chairman. W.S.L.
(his insider trading and shady business dealings eventually bankrupted
WSL. so that it had to merge with Cunard in 1934)
Henry Campbell
Edgar L. Frank -- Commander
Burton Chadwick-- Deputy Master Hon. Co. Master Mariners
Taken from the
Journal of The Honourable Company of Master Mariners
NOTICES AND RECORD
Death of Sir Robert Burton-Chadwick (1869-1951)
It is with very great regret that we record the death of our distinguished
founder, Sir Robert Burton-Chadwick, Bt, which occurred at his
London home on the 21st May. He was 81 years of age.
His passing will be deeply felt throughout the Company, and especially
by those of his colleagues who rallied to support him in 1921, when
he first advanced the suggestion that Master Mariners should form a
Company based upon the traditions and usage of the Guilds and Associations
possessed for centuries by their contemporaries in other walks of life,
and in so doing lift the status of an honourable profession out of the
obscurity in which it lay. Sir Robert's remarkable qualities of leadership,
and the influential help which, by reason of his prominent position
in public affairs he was able to enlist, carried the suggestion to a
practical reality in 1926, when the Company of Master Mariners was formally
incorporated.
He continued with great zcal to advance its aims, and realising
the responsibilities which attached to his office of Deputy Master he
gave up his position as Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade
in 1928 in order to devote his whole attention to the Company's affairs.
Under his able guidance in those early and difficult years the Company
gained steadily in prestige, until in 1932, by its grant of Livery from
the Court of Aldermen of London, he considered that the seal of success
had been set upon the work he had begun. It was the fulfilment of an
ambition which had lain close to his heart since the days of his boyhood
at sea. The Company is a monument to Sir Robert's vision and abundant
courage; then-uncut position to which it has risen is the measure of his achievement
on behalf of the Service he loved so well. We, who mourn the passing
of a beloved leader, can pay no greater respect to his memory than to
cherish the high ideals which were his inspiration.
Robert Burton-Chadwick was horn at Birkenhead in 1869, and was
the eldest-son of the late Mr. Joseph Chadwick, a shipowner of that
port. When he was 16 his father arranged a voyage for him in one of
Gillison & Chadwick's sailing ships the voyage was one of convalescence,
but he liked the life so well that he remained on under apprentice's
indentures, and eventually obtained his Extra Master's (Square Rig)
Certificate. He served for a time in the P. & 0. Company as a junior
officer, but left the sea in 1897 to enter his father's firm, of which
he became a partner in 1903. During the first world war he served on
the staff of the Ministry of Munitions as Director of Overseas Transport,
in which post his wide knowledge of shipping was of great advantage
to the Government. As Unionist member for Barrow-in-Furness he entered
Parliament in 1918, and was returned again as member for Wallasey in
1922. He was appointed Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade
in 1924, under Mr. Stanley Baldwin's administration. He was knighted
in 1920, and created a Baronet in 1935, a title to which his son, Robert
(Peter) Burton-Chadwick succeeds.
At the outbreak of the second world war Sir Robert again offered his
services to the Government, and he was appointed to Buenos Aires, with
the rank of counsellor, as representative of rhe Ministry of War Transport
in Argentina, Uruguay, and Chile. He returned to England in 1946, and
at once applied himself, with characteristic energy, to the task of
assisting the Master and Wardens to raise funds for the conversion and
maintenance of thc Wellington. The last of his many generous benefactions
to the Company was the creation of a Trust whereby he undertook, for
himself and his executors, to double any new donations for that purpose
received--from members or their friends (up to a total of £3,000) as
from the 20th June, 1950, the undertaking to remain open until 20th-June,
1952.
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