Edward Douglas-Scott-Montagu, 3rd Baron Montagu of Beaulieu facts for kids

Quick facts for kids The Right Honourable The Lord Montagu of Beaulieu
Portrait by Allan Warren, 1974
Member of the House of Lords
Lord Temporal
as a hereditary peer 7 November 1947 – 11 November 1999
Preceded by	The 2nd Baron Montagu of Beaulieu
Succeeded by	Seat abolished
as an elected hereditary peer 11 November 1999 – 31 August 2015
Election	1999
Preceded by	Seat established
Succeeded by	The 14th Lord Fairfax of Cameron
Personal details
Born	Edward John Barrington Douglas-Scott-Montagu (1926-10-20)20 October 1926 London, England
Died	31 August 2015(2015-08-31) (aged 88) Beaulieu Palace House, Hampshire, England
Political party	Conservative
Spouse	Belinda Crossley ​ ​ (m. 1958; div. 1974)​ / Fiona Herbert ​ (m. 1974)​
Education	Ridley College, Canada Eton College New College, Oxford
Military service
Branch/service	Grenadier Guards
Years of service	1945–1948
Rank	Lieutenant

Edward John Barrington Douglas-Scott-Montagu, 3rd Baron Montagu of Beaulieu (20 October 1926 – 31 August 2015) was a British aristocrat and Conservative politician, best known for founding the National Motor Museum, as well as for a pivotal cause célèbre following his 1954 conviction and imprisonment for alleged homosexual activity, a charge he denied.

Early life

Edward Douglas-Scott-Montagu, 3rd Baron Montagu of Beaulieu, age 10 (Beaulieu Palace House)

Montagu was born at his grandparents' house in Thurloe Square, South Kensington, London, and inherited his barony in 1929 at the age of two, when his father John died of pneumonia. He held his peerage for the third longest time (86 years and 155 days) anyone has held a British peerage (the others being the 7th Marquess Townshend at 88 years, and the 13th Lord Sinclair at 87 years). His mother was his father's second wife, Alice Crake (1895–1996). He attended St Peter's Court, a prep school at Broadstairs in Kent, then Ridley College in Canada, Eton College and finally New College, Oxford.

He served as a lieutenant in the Grenadier Guards, including service in Palestine before the end of the British Mandate. On coming of age, Lord Montagu immediately took his seat in the House of Lords and swiftly made his maiden speech on the subject of Palestine. He read Modern History at Oxford, but during his second year an altercation between the Bullingdon Club, of which he was a member, and the Oxford University Dramatic Society led to his room being wrecked, and he felt obliged to leave.

Activities

Lord Montagu gained an interest in motoring from his father – who had commissioned the original "Spirit of Ecstasy" mascot for his Rolls-Royce – and with his family collection of historic cars this led him to open the National Motor Museum in the grounds of his stately home, Beaulieu Palace House, Beaulieu, Hampshire, in 1952.

From 1956 to 1961 he held the influential Beaulieu Jazz Festival in the grounds of Palace House; this was a leading contribution to the development of festival culture in Britain, as it attracted thousands of young people who, from 1958 on, would camp out and listen and dance to live music. The 1960 festival saw an altercation between modern and trad jazz fans that became known as the Battle of Beaulieu.

Montagu founded The Veteran And Vintage Magazine in 1956 and continued to develop the museum, making a name for himself in tourism. He was chairman of the Historic Houses Association from 1973 to 1978, President of the Institute of Traffic Administration from 1973 to 1974 and chairman of English Heritage from 1984 to 1992. Whilst there he appointed Jennifer Page (later of the Millennium Dome) as Chief Executive in 1989.

In the 1999 reform of the House of Lords, Montagu was one of 92 hereditary peers who remained in Parliament. In 2007, he was Vice-Commodore of the House of Lords Yacht Club.

He gave a notice of his intention to retire from the House of Lords on 17 September 2015, but he died before that.

Personal life and death

In 1958, Lord Montagu of Beaulieu married Belinda Crossley, a granddaughter of the 1st Baron Somerleyton, by whom he had a son and a daughter before the couple divorced in 1974:

• Ralph Douglas-Scott-Montagu, 4th Baron Montagu of Beaulieu (born 13 March 1961)
• Hon. Mary Montagu-Scott (born 1964), married with issue to Rupert Scott (who took the surname Montagu-Scott, 4th son of Christopher Bartle Hugh Scott, 12th of Gala)

In 1974, he married his second wife, Fiona Margaret Herbert, with whom he had a son:

• Hon. Jonathan Deane Montagu-Scott (born 11 October 1975).

Fiona, Lady Montagu of Beaulieu, was born in about 1943 in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), the daughter of Richard Leonard Deane Herbert, of Clymping, Sussex. She attended school in Switzerland, and following her education, she worked as film production assistant. She was a director of Beaulieu Enterprises and a trustee of the Countryside Education Trust. She served as an international advisor to the World Centre of Compassion for Children, led by Nobel Peace Laureate, Betty Williams, as well as a Trustee of Vision-in-Action, led by Yasuhiko Kimura. She additionally served on The World Wisdom Council, alongside Mikhail Gorbachev, former head of state of the Soviet Union. She was appointed the first global ambassador to the Club of Budapest. She died in May 2023.

Montagu died after a short illness, on 31 August 2015 at the age of 88, at his Beaulieu Estate in the New Forest. He was survived by his three children and two grandchildren. Fiona, Lady Montagu of Beaulieu died after a short illness on 14 May 2023, at the age of 79.

Memoirs and documentary film

For nearly half a century, Montagu steadfastly refused to speak publicly about the conviction, instead focusing his energies on the National Motor Museum and other activities. However, in 2000, he finally broke his silence with the publication of his memoirs, Wheels Within Wheels, of which two chapters are devoted to the story of his trial and imprisonment. In interviews, he has stated that by publishing his story, he wanted to "put the record straight", because he "felt it was important to get it accurate."

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In April 2013, the Newport Beach Film Festival, at Newport Beach, California, screened Lord Montagu, a documentary by Luke Korem on Montagu's life and accomplishments. The film was also shown at the Napa Valley Film Festival in November 2013.