Christopher Birdwood, 2nd Baron Birdwood
Christopher Bromhead Birdwood, 2nd Baron Birdwood, MVO (22 May 1899 – 5 January 1962), was a British hereditary peer, soldier and author.[2]
The Lord Birdwood
1951–62
William Birdwood
Mark William Ogilvie Birdwood
22 May 1899
Twickenham, London, England[1]
5 January 1962 (aged 62)
- Elizabeth Vere Drummond Ogilvie (married 1931)
- Joan Pollack Graham (married 1954)
2
Hereditary peer, soldier and author
Early life[edit]
The son of Field Marshal Lord Birdwood and Janetta Hope Gonville Bromhead (daughter of Sir Benjamin Parnell Bromhead, 4th Baronet, and niece of Gonville Bromhead, VC), Christopher Birdwood was born and baptised at Twickenham, London, England.
He was educated at Clifton College[3] and the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, Berkshire.
Personal life[edit]
He married, firstly, Elizabeth Vere Drummond Ogilvie, daughter of Lieutenant Colonel Sir George Drummond Ogilvie and Lorna Rome, on 7 March 1931 at Delhi, India. The couple had a son and daughter; they divorced in 1954.
In the meantime, he had succeeded to his father's titles on 17 May 1951. He married, secondly, Joan Pollack Graham, by then known as Jane, daughter of Christopher Norman Graham, on 22 February 1954. After his death, Lady Birdwood became an activist on the far-right of British politics.
Christopher Birdwood had a strong interest in humanitarian affairs: after World War 2 he was briefly Head of the British Red Cross, and later Chairman of the Hungarian Relief Fund. His concern about the spreading influence of communism during the "cold war" was exhibited in his speeches in the House of Lords, in becoming a Director of the Free Czechoslovak Information Service (1954–1961), his involvement in the British Tibet Society, and in numerous articles for the British press.
His son from his first marriage, Mark William Ogilvie Birdwood (1938–2015), succeeded to the title.[7]