Geoffrey Drage

Early life and family

Drage was the son of Dr Charles Drage of Hatfield in Hertfordshire. He was educated at Eton and at Christ Church, Oxford, where he graduated in 1883, before pursuing further studies in European universities including Berlin and Moscow. He was called to the bar at both Lincoln's Inn and the Middle Temple, but never practised as a barrister.

In 1896 he married Ethel Sealby Ismay, the daughter of Thomas Henry Ismay who founded the White Star Line. They had two sons.

Career

Drage became a prolific writer and commentator of public affairs, particularly on poverty, labour relations and the training of sailors.

From 1891 to 1894 he was secretary to the Royal Commission on labour relations.

Drage was elected at the 1895 general election as one of the two members of parliament for (MP)s) for Derby. He and Sir Henry Howe Bemrose had unseated the town's two sitting Liberal MPs, including the Chancellor of the Exchequer Sir William Vernon Harcourt. The election was a nationwide rout for the Liberals, who lost a third of their seats in the House of Commons, but in a letter to The Times newspaper Drage attributed his success to his own campaigning efforts in Derby. In six months of campaigning he had addressed at least one meeting of working men every week, offering what he called "practical answers" to labour problems.

He lost his seat at the next general election, in 1900 and never returned to Parliament. He contested Cleveland at the 1902 by-election, Woolwich at the 1903 by-election, Blackburn at the 1906 general election, but was unsuccessful in each case.

In 1897 he was a member of the International Congress on Housing of the Working Classes, in Brussels, and in 1900 of the International Congress on Poor Law and Charity, in Paris. In 1906 he became President of the Central Poor Law Conference.

From 1910 to 1919 he was an alderman of London County Council.

During World War I he served from 1914 in the military intelligence section of the War Office.

Works