Esmond Harmsworth, 2nd Viscount Rothermere
Esmond Cecil Harmsworth, 2nd Viscount Rothermere, was a British Conservative politician and press magnate.
Early life
Harmsworth was the third son of Harold Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Rothermere, who had founded the Daily Mail in partnership with his brother Alfred Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Northcliffe. He was educated at Eton College and commissioned into the Royal Marine Artillery in World War I. His two older brothers were both killed in action. Esmond served as aide-de-camp to the prime minister at the Paris Peace Conference. In 1919, he was elected as a Unionist Member of Parliament for the Isle of Thanet, one of the youngest MPs ever. He served until 1929.Press career
After 1922, the Daily Mail and General Trust company was created to control the newspapers that Lord Rothermere retained after Lord Northcliffe's death. As his father dabbled in association with the Nazis and a flirtation with becoming King of Hungary, it fell to Harmsworth to manage the businesses. His father retired as chairman of Associated Newspapers in 1932 at the age of 64, and Harmsworth took over that role. He served as chairman until 1971, after which he assumed the titles of president and director of group finance, and chairman of Daily Mail & General Trust Ltd, the parent company, from 1938 until his death.He became a director of The Rank Organisation in 1962. Harmsworth also had a significant impact on the development of Memorial University of Newfoundland. The university's first residence in Paton College, known as Rothermere House, is named after the Viscount. Harmsworth was the first Chancellor of Memorial University and the benefactor who provided the funds to construct Rothermere House.
Personal life and death
Lord Rothermere succeeded his father in the viscountcy in 1940. He married three times and had four children. His first marriage was to Margaret Hunnam Redhead, daughter of William Lancelot Redhead of Carville Hall, Brentford, on 12 January 1920. They had three children:- Lorna Peggy Vyvyan Harmsworth, who married Neill Cooper-Key MP, and had issue, two sons and two daughters; her younger and only surviving son was the first husband of Lady Mary-Gaye Curzon.
- Esmé Mary Gabrielle Harmsworth, who married Rowland Baring, Viscount Errington, and had issue, two sons and one daughter, before his death in 1991. In 1993, she married secondly, to Captain Reinier Gerrit Anton van der Woude, whose first wife had been Lady Penelope Herbert, a daughter of the 6th Earl of Carnarvon.
- Vere Harmsworth, 3rd Viscount Rothermere
Lord Rothermere married, thirdly, Mary Murchison, daughter of Kenneth Murchison, on 28 March 1966, by whom he had a second son:
- Esmond Vyvyan Harmsworth, who moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1993. He died in April 2025 while on holiday in Mauritius. He was 57.