Cooper, Alfred Duff, 1st Viscount Norwich of Aldwick, British And Irish History, Biographies

Related Category: British And Irish History, Biographies

Cooper, Alfred Duff, 1st Viscount Norwich of Aldwick[kOO´pur, koop´ur] Pronunciation Key, 1890–1954, British statesman and diplomat. Elected to Parliament as a Conservative (Unionist) in 1924, he served as secretary of state for war (1935–37) in the coalition cabinet and was first lord of the admiralty in 1938 when he resigned in protest against the Munich Pact. He returned to the cabinet as minister of information (1940–41) under Winston Churchill. Appointed resident minister of Far Eastern affairs in Singapore in Dec., 1941, he was recalled the following month, shortly before Singapore fell to the Japanese. From 1944 to 1947 he served as ambassador to France. He was raised to the peerage in 1952. Among his writings is an autobiography, Old Men Forget (1953).