Edmund Fletcher Rees-Mogg (1889-1962)

He was born at Cholwell House, Somerset. The son and grandson of country solicitors, he was educated at Charterhouse and University College, Oxford. He finished his education with a year at the Sorbonne in Paris before becoming a schoolmaster in Lancashire teaching Latin, Greek and French. While there, he caught pneumonia which weakened his heart and when war broke out he was declared unfit to join the army and served instead as an ambulance driver in France. In 1920, within two weeks, he had met and married the American actress Beatrice Warren, daughter of the self-made Irish-American Daniel Warren of Mamaroneck, N.Y. It was her money that allowed him to live the life of a country gentleman and devote himself to local politics.

During World War II, he was Chairman of the Clutton Rural District Council and served as High Sheriff of Somerset in 1945. He was Alderman of the Somerset County Council and for many years he was Chairman of the Council's General Purposes & Welfare Committees. As Chairman of Welfare, he was responsible for opening ten homes for the elderly. He was Chairman of Mendip Hospital and the Temple Cloud Bench of Magistrates. His obituary stated that, "in all his voluntary work he was remarkable for his gift of chairmanship, his judicial sense, and for his interest in the welfare of old people". He was survived by his widow, two daughters and a son (William) whose views on the welfare system - shared by William's son, former M.P. Jacob Rees-Mogg - were polar opposite to his own (nb. William's prophetic book "The Sovereign Individual").