Nigel Birch, Baron Rhyl
British politician (1906-1981)
Evelyn Nigel Chetwode Birch, Baron Rhyl (18 November 1906 – 8 March 1981) was a British Conservative politician.
The son of General Sir Noel Birch and his wife Florence Chetwode, Nigel Birch was educated at Eton. He was a partner in Cohen Laming Hoare until May 1939 when he retired to study politics. He served in World War II in the King's Royal Rifle Corps and on General Staff, being promoted to the rank of lieutenant-colonel in 1944. He was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 1945.
He was Conservative Member of Parliament for Flintshire from 1945 to 1950 and for West Flintshire from 1950 to 1970. He served in government as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Air from 1951 to 1952, Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Defence from 1952 to 1954, Minister of Works from October 1954 to December 1955, Secretary of State for Air from December 1955 to January 1957 and Economic Secretary to the Treasury from 1957 to 1958.
His resignation in 1958, along with that of the Chancellor of the Exchequer Peter Thorneycroft and fellow Treasury Minister Enoch Powell, was described by Harold Macmillan as "little local difficulties".
In 1950 he married Esmé Glyn, the daughter of the 4th Baron Wolverton.
In 1955, he was appointed a privy counsellor, and on 7 July 1970, he was created a life peer as Baron Rhyl, of Holywell in the parish of Swanmore in the County of Southampton.
The public source identifies “Nigel Birch, Baron Rhyl” as british politician (1906-1981). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Nigel, Birch and Baron.
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The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 4, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7032247. VIAF identifies the subject as 111691925. The Library of Congress control number is no2010004341. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1906, 1981, 1939 and 1944.
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This entry incorporates text from “Nigel Birch, Baron Rhyl” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.