Neill Cooper-Key Explained

Sir Edmund McNeill Cooper-Key (26 April 1907[1] – 5 January 1981) was a British Conservative politician. He was member of parliament for Hastings from 1945 until his retirement in 1970.[2]

The son of Captain Edmund Moore Cooper Cooper-Key, C.B., M.V.O.,[3] of Landford, Hampshire by his wife Florence (née Wigram), Cooper-Key was educated at the Royal Naval College, Osborne, and Dartmouth. He served in the Irish Guards during the Second World War, and alongside his later political career was a governor and committee member of the RNLI and director of Associated Newspapers Ltd, the Aberdeen Investment Trust, and Price Brothers Ltd. He was created a Knight Bachelor in 1960.

On 11 January 1941 he married Hon. Lorna Peggy Vyvyan Harmsworth (24 October 1920 – 18 June 2014), elder daughter of the 2nd Viscount Rothermere. They had two sons and two daughters; the second – but only surviving – son, (Kevin) Esmond Peter (1943–1985), married Lady Mary-Gaye Georgiana Lorna Curzon, third daughter of the 6th Earl Howe, whose daughter by her second husband, property magnate and scion of baronets John Anstruther-Gough-Calthorpe, is the actress Isabella Calthorpe.

He lived at Burnt Wood, Battle, East Sussex.

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Sir Neill Cooper-Key (Hansard) . api.parliament.uk . 12 November 2024.
  2. Web site: Members after 1832 . membersafter1832.historyofparliamentonline.org . 12 November 2024.
  3. Book: Debrett's Peerage, Baronetage, Knightage, and Companionage . 1973 . Kelly's Directories . 2273 . 12 November 2024 . en.