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Rodney Elton, 2nd Baron Elton (born 2 March 1930) is a British politician and Conservative member of the House of Lords.
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Biography
Elton is the son of Godfrey Elton, 1st Baron Elton. He was educated at Eton College and New College, Oxford and succeeded to the peerage on his father's death in 1973.
On the formation of a Conservative government after the 1979 general election, Elton was made a Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Northern Ireland Office. In 1981 he was moved to the Department of Health and Social Security and in 1982 to the Home Office. In 1984 he was promoted to Minister of State within the Home Office. In 1985, Elton joined the Department of Environment, again as a Minister of State, but left the government the following year.
With the passage of the House of Lords Act 1999, Elton along with almost all other hereditary peers lost his automatic right to sit in the House of Lords. He was however elected as one of the ninety elected hereditary peers to remain in the House of Lords pending completion of House of Lords reform.
Elton was a candidate to become Lord Speaker in the elections that took place at the end of June 2006, but he was defeated, with Baroness Hayman ultimately winning.
Marriages and children
Elton was married to Anne Frances Tilney, daughter of Robert Tilney, on 18 September 1958. They had four children (all of whom are entitled to the style The Honourable as children of a peer):
Following a divorce in 1979, on 24 August 1979 Elton married Susan Richenda Gurney (born 1937), daughter of Hugh Gurney and a granddaughter of Lancelot Carnegie. There are no children of this marriage.
Richenda Elton is a current Lady of the Bedchamber to Elizabeth II.