John Kemp, 1st Viscount Rochdale

Brigadier John Durival Kemp, 1st Viscount Rochdale OBE, TD, DL (5 June 1906 – 24 May 1993 His father was a Member of Parliament for Heywood and Manchester North West and served as chairman of Kelsall & Kemp, flannel manufacturers.

He was educated at Eton College and Trinity College, Cambridge where he took a degree in Natural Sciences.

Career Kemp served in the Second World War with U.S. Forces in the Pacific and with the British Army in India, where he was mentioned in despatches, and achieved the rank of Brigadier. He succeeded to the barony on his father's death in 1945. Lord Rochdale was Chairman of the family firm of Kelsall & Kemp from 1950 to 1971, a Member of the Central Transport Consultative Committees from 1952 to 1957, President of the National Union of Manufacturers from 1953 to 1956, a Governor of the BBC from 1954 to 1959 and Chairman of the Cotton Board from 1957 to 1962,

He was also a Member of the House of Lords European Select Committee from 1981 to 1986 and a Deputy Lieutenant of Cumbria from 1948 to 1983. In 1960, he was created Viscount Rochdale, of Rochdale in the County Palatine of Lancaster.

St John Durival Kemp, 2nd Viscount Rochdale (1938–2015), who married Serena Jane Clark-Hall, daughter of James Edward Michael Clark-Hall in 1960. They divorced in 1974 and he married Elizabeth (née Boldon) Anderton, the former wife of James Michael Anderton and daughter of Robert Norman Rossiter Boldon.

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