Gerald Isaacs (1889–1960)

Gerald Rufus Isaacs was born in London, the only son of Rufus Isaacs, 1st Marquess of Reading, and his wife Alice Edith Cohen. He was educated at Rugby School and Balliol College, Oxford. He served in the British Army in World War I, earning the Military Cross in 1918, and then followed his father into Liberal politics. During this time, he was known as Viscount Erleigh. In 1914, he married the Hon. Eva Violet Mond, with whom he had two children. She became a prominent social worker and adviser to the Ministry of Health. He succeeded his father as 2nd Marquess of Reading in 1935. He became a barrister and served as a bencher of the Middle Temple from 1936, becoming treasurer in 1958. When Winston Churchill became Prime Minister again in 1951, Lord Reading was appointed Joint Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, a post he held until 1953, when he was promoted to Minister of State for Foreign Affairs and admitted to the Privy Council. He left government in 1957. He was active in Jewish affairs as chairman of the Council for German Jewry and president of the London Jewish Hospital. He wrote The South Sea Bubble (1933) about the famous 18th century English speculative boom and crash, and a two-volume biography of his father.