Name David 2nd | Spouse Tessa Browning (m. 1970) | |
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Parents Bernard Montgomery, 1st Viscount Montgomery of Alamein Grandparents Henry Montgomery, Maud (nee Farrar) Uncles Donald Montgomery, Harold Montgomery Great-grandparents Frederic Farrar, Robert Montgomery Similar People Bernard Montgomery - 1st Visco, Frederick Browning, Daphne du Maurier, Manfred Rommel | ||
David Bernard Montgomery, 2nd Viscount Montgomery of Alamein CMG CBE (born 18 August 1928) is a British politician, and businessman.
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Early life and education
Montgomery is the son of the World War II field marshal, Bernard Montgomery, 1st Viscount Montgomery of Alamein.
David Montgomery attended Winchester College from May 1942 onwards, and his father, posted abroad from the middle of the year, arranged for his time in school holidays to be divided between his prep school headmaster Mr Reynolds and Jocelyn, wife of David's half-brother John Carver (one of two sons from David's mother's previous marriage), as well as strict instructions that “on no account” was the boy to visit his aged grandmother, whom Bernard detested, in County Donegal.
He gained an engineering degree at Trinity College, Cambridge.
Career
Montgomery entered business, working for Yardley and several other companies, building close links with Latin America. He has served as a patron and chairman of various Anglo-Latin American organisations, including the Anglo-Argentine Society, Canning House and the Hispanic and Luso Brazilian Council. He succeeded in the viscountcy following his father's death in 1976 and originally sat as a Conservative in the House of Lords until 1999, when he and most other hereditary peers were removed from the House under the House of Lords Act 1999. He was returned to the Lords as a crossbencher in an election of hereditary cross-bench peers in 2005, following the death of Baroness Strange.
He was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1975 and a Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George (CMG) in 2000. He has also received decorations from Germany, Belgium, Spain, Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Venezuela and Colombia. He co-wrote The Lonely Leader: Monty 1944-45 with Alistair Horne about his father in 1994 which documented his own early life as well as his father's.
Personal life
In 1953, Montgomery married Mary Connell, divorcing in 1967 after having a son and a daughter:
Issue:
He then married Tessa Browning, daughter of Daphne du Maurier and Lieutenant-General Sir Frederick Browning, a close colleague of his father. Viscount Montgomery became Patron of Freedom Flame UK, in May 2014 in recognition of the lighting of a Torch of Unity at the D Day stone, Southsea by his father Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery, on 13 September 1948.