Tremayne Rodd, 3rd Baron Rennell
Encyclopedia
John Adrian Tremayne Rodd, 3rd Baron Rennell (28 June 1935 - 9 December 2006) was a Scottish rugby union
player. He succeeded his uncle as 3rd Baron Rennell in 1978, and sat on the Conservative Party
benches in the House of Lords
.
, and his wife, the former Yvonne Mary Marling, a singing teacher and co-author of Singing, the Physical Nature of the Vocal Organ. His elder brother (by two years), Saul David Rennell Rodd, predeceased him. His father was the younger son of the diplomat and Conservative MP Sir Rennell Rodd
, who was created Baron Rennell
in 1933. His father's elder brother was 2nd Baron Rennell
. His uncles and aunts also included the life peer the Baroness Emmet of Amberley
, and, through marriage, the artist Simon Elwes
and Nancy Mitford
. Rodd was evacuated to the United States during the Second World War
. On his return, he was educated at Downside School
.
in 1952, and joined Britannia Royal Naval College
in Dartmouth
. He later served in the Home Fleet, the Mediterranean Fleet
and the Far East Fleet. He was the boxing
champion of the Home Fleet in 1958, and played rugby for Royal Navy, Combined Services and United Services teams.
between 1958 and 1965, battling for his place with Stan Coughtrie and Alex Hastie. He was a member of the Scottish team that shared the Five Nations with Wales in 1964. He also played for the Barbarians
. He played most of his rugby in England, for London Scottish
, Plymouth
, and the Hampshire rugby club. In the 1960s he was a key player in the London Scottish rugby sevens
team, winning the Middlesex Sevens tournament five times from 1960 to 1965. He started to scale back his rugby-playing activities in 1965 and finally his amateur rugby career was ended by a ban for working as a freelance journalist on a British Lions
tour in 1966, writing for The Observer
and The Scotsman
, which led to a ruling by the International Rugby Board
that he had become a professional.
in 1962 with the rank of lieutenant
. Until 1966, he worked as a merchant bank
er at Morgan Grenfell, where his uncle, the 2nd Baron Rennell, was a director. After leaving Morgan Grenfell, he became a director of Marks of Distinction, a company that created sporting medals and trophies and put on sporting and corporate promotional events. He left to run his own trophy and sporting promotions company, Tremayne Limited, from 1978 to 1984. In 1974, at the funeral of his cousin Dominic Elwes
who committed suicide, after a sententious speech by John Aspinall
Rennell infamously "went up and gave Aspinall the most useful punch in the face you have ever seen." He succeeded his uncle as 3rd Baron Rennell in 1978, and took the Conservative
whip in the House of Lords
. Rodd actively participated in many sports including; rugby for several Parliamentary teams, cricket
, golf
, bridge
, backgammon
and chess
. In 2000 he was the team leader for Vladimir Kramnik
in London when he won the World Chess Championship
from Garry Kasparov
. He also played in several backgammon world championships.
In 1977 he married Phyllis Neill. The marriage produced a son and three daughters. Rodd died of cancer
in London, aged 71. Upon his death the title passed to his son, James Rodd, 4th Baron Rennell.
Rugby union
Rugby union, often simply referred to as rugby, is a full contact team sport which originated in England in the early 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand...
player. He succeeded his uncle as 3rd Baron Rennell in 1978, and sat on the Conservative Party
Conservative Party (UK)
The Conservative Party, formally the Conservative and Unionist Party, is a centre-right political party in the United Kingdom that adheres to the philosophies of conservatism and British unionism. It is the largest political party in the UK, and is currently the largest single party in the House...
benches in the House of Lords
House of Lords
The House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster....
.
Early years
John Adrian Tremayne Rodd was the younger son of Gustaf Guthrie Rennell Rodd, a Commander in the Royal NavyRoyal Navy
The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...
, and his wife, the former Yvonne Mary Marling, a singing teacher and co-author of Singing, the Physical Nature of the Vocal Organ. His elder brother (by two years), Saul David Rennell Rodd, predeceased him. His father was the younger son of the diplomat and Conservative MP Sir Rennell Rodd
Rennell Rodd, 1st Baron Rennell
James Rennell Rodd, 1st Baron Rennell, GCB, GCMG, GCVO, PC , known as Sir Rennell Rodd before 1933, was a British diplomat, poet and politician...
, who was created Baron Rennell
Baron Rennell
Baron Rennell, of Rodd in the County of Hereford, is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created in 1933 for the diplomat Sir Rennell Rodd, previously British Ambassador to Italy. His second but eldest surviving son, the second Baron, served as President of the Royal Geographical...
in 1933. His father's elder brother was 2nd Baron Rennell
Francis Rodd, 2nd Baron Rennell
Major General Francis James Rennell Rodd, 2nd Baron Rennell KBE CB JP was the second but eldest surviving son of the diplomat James Rennell Rodd, 1st Baron Rennell. During the First World War he served in the artillery and as an intelligence officer in France, Italy North Africa , Palestine and...
. His uncles and aunts also included the life peer the Baroness Emmet of Amberley
Evelyn Emmet, Baroness Emmet of Amberley
Evelyn Violet Elizabeth Emmet, Baroness Emmet of Amberley was a British Conservative Party politician....
, and, through marriage, the artist Simon Elwes
Simon Elwes
Lt. Col. Simon Edmund Vincent Paul Elwes, better known as Simon Elwes, RP, RA, KM was a British war artist and society portrait painter whose patrons included kings, queens, statesmen, sportsmen, prominent social figures and many members of Britain's Royal Family...
and Nancy Mitford
Nancy Mitford
Nancy Freeman-Mitford, CBE , styled The Hon. Nancy Mitford before her marriage and The Hon. Mrs Peter Rodd thereafter, was an English novelist and biographer, one of the Bright Young People on the London social scene in the inter-war years...
. Rodd was evacuated to the United States during the Second World War
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. On his return, he was educated at Downside School
Downside School
Downside School is a co-educational Catholic independent school for children aged 11 to 18, located in Stratton-on-the-Fosse, between Norton Radstock and Shepton Mallet in Somerset, south west England. It is attached to Downside Abbey...
.
Royal Navy
He followed his father in joining the Royal NavyRoyal Navy
The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...
in 1952, and joined Britannia Royal Naval College
Britannia Royal Naval College
Britannia Royal Naval College is the initial officer training establishment of the Royal Navy, located on a hill overlooking Dartmouth, Devon, England. While Royal Naval officer training has taken place in the town since 1863, the buildings which are seen today were only finished in 1905, and...
in Dartmouth
Dartmouth, Devon
Dartmouth is a town and civil parish in the English county of Devon. It is a tourist destination set on the banks of the estuary of the River Dart, which is a long narrow tidal ria that runs inland as far as Totnes...
. He later served in the Home Fleet, the Mediterranean Fleet
Mediterranean Fleet (Royal Navy)
The British Mediterranean Fleet was part of the Royal Navy. The Fleet was one of the most prestigious commands in the navy for the majority of its history, defending the vital sea link between the United Kingdom and the majority of the British Empire in the Eastern Hemisphere...
and the Far East Fleet. He was the boxing
Boxing
Boxing, also called pugilism, is a combat sport in which two people fight each other using their fists. Boxing is supervised by a referee over a series of between one to three minute intervals called rounds...
champion of the Home Fleet in 1958, and played rugby for Royal Navy, Combined Services and United Services teams.
Rugby
As Tremayne Rodd, he won 14 caps as a scrum-half for ScotlandScotland national rugby union team
The Scotland national rugby union team represent Scotland in international rugby union. Rugby union in Scotland is administered by the Scottish Rugby Union. The Scotland rugby union team is currently ranked eighth in the IRB World Rankings as of 19 September 2011...
between 1958 and 1965, battling for his place with Stan Coughtrie and Alex Hastie. He was a member of the Scottish team that shared the Five Nations with Wales in 1964. He also played for the Barbarians
Barbarian F.C.
The Barbarian Football Club, usually referred to as the Barbarians and nicknamed the "Baa-Baas", is an invitational rugby union team based in Britain...
. He played most of his rugby in England, for London Scottish
London Scottish F.C.
London Scottish Football Club is a rugby union club in England. It is a member of both the Rugby Football Union and the Scottish Rugby Union.-History:...
, Plymouth
Plymouth Albion R.F.C.
Plymouth Albion Rugby Football Club is a rugby union club who play in Plymouth, England. The club was founded around 1915 from a merger between Plymouth RFC and Devonport Albion RFC...
, and the Hampshire rugby club. In the 1960s he was a key player in the London Scottish rugby sevens
Rugby sevens
Rugby sevens, also known as seven-a-side or VIIs, is a variant of rugby union in which teams are made up of seven players, instead of the usual 15, with shorter matches. Rugby sevens is administered by the International Rugby Board , the body responsible for rugby union worldwide...
team, winning the Middlesex Sevens tournament five times from 1960 to 1965. He started to scale back his rugby-playing activities in 1965 and finally his amateur rugby career was ended by a ban for working as a freelance journalist on a British Lions
British and Irish Lions
The British and Irish Lions is a rugby union team made up of players from England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales...
tour in 1966, writing for The Observer
The Observer
The Observer is a British newspaper, published on Sundays. In the same place on the political spectrum as its daily sister paper The Guardian, which acquired it in 1993, it takes a liberal or social democratic line on most issues. It is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.-Origins:The first issue,...
and The Scotsman
The Scotsman
The Scotsman is a British newspaper, published in Edinburgh.As of August 2011 it had an audited circulation of 38,423, down from about 100,000 in the 1980s....
, which led to a ruling by the International Rugby Board
International Rugby Board
The International Rugby Board is the governing body for the sport of rugby union. It was founded in 1886 as the International Rugby Football Board by the unions of Scotland, Wales and Ireland. England refused to join until 1890. The International Rugby Football Board changed its name to the...
that he had become a professional.
Later years
Rodd left the Royal NavyRoyal Navy
The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...
in 1962 with the rank of lieutenant
Lieutenant
A lieutenant is a junior commissioned officer in many nations' armed forces. Typically, the rank of lieutenant in naval usage, while still a junior officer rank, is senior to the army rank...
. Until 1966, he worked as a merchant bank
Merchant bank
A merchant bank is a financial institution which provides capital to companies in the form of share ownership instead of loans. A merchant bank also provides advisory on corporate matters to the firms they lend to....
er at Morgan Grenfell, where his uncle, the 2nd Baron Rennell, was a director. After leaving Morgan Grenfell, he became a director of Marks of Distinction, a company that created sporting medals and trophies and put on sporting and corporate promotional events. He left to run his own trophy and sporting promotions company, Tremayne Limited, from 1978 to 1984. In 1974, at the funeral of his cousin Dominic Elwes
Dominic Elwes
Bede Evelyn Dominick Elwes was an English portrait painter whose much publicized elopement with an heiress in 1957 was a scandale célèbre.-Biography:...
who committed suicide, after a sententious speech by John Aspinall
John Aspinall
John Aspinall may refer to:* John Aspinall , zoo owner and gambler* John Aspinall , engineer* John Thomas Walshman Aspinall , English Conservative Party politician, Member of Parliament for Clitheroe 1853...
Rennell infamously "went up and gave Aspinall the most useful punch in the face you have ever seen." He succeeded his uncle as 3rd Baron Rennell in 1978, and took the Conservative
Conservative Party (UK)
The Conservative Party, formally the Conservative and Unionist Party, is a centre-right political party in the United Kingdom that adheres to the philosophies of conservatism and British unionism. It is the largest political party in the UK, and is currently the largest single party in the House...
whip in the House of Lords
House of Lords
The House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster....
. Rodd actively participated in many sports including; rugby for several Parliamentary teams, cricket
Cricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...
, golf
Golf
Golf is a precision club and ball sport, in which competing players use many types of clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a golf course using the fewest number of strokes....
, bridge
Contract bridge
Contract bridge, usually known simply as bridge, is a trick-taking card game using a standard deck of 52 playing cards played by four players in two competing partnerships with partners sitting opposite each other around a small table...
, backgammon
Backgammon
Backgammon is one of the oldest board games for two players. The playing pieces are moved according to the roll of dice, and players win by removing all of their pieces from the board. There are many variants of backgammon, most of which share common traits...
and chess
Chess
Chess is a two-player board game played on a chessboard, a square-checkered board with 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight grid. It is one of the world's most popular games, played by millions of people worldwide at home, in clubs, online, by correspondence, and in tournaments.Each player...
. In 2000 he was the team leader for Vladimir Kramnik
Vladimir Kramnik
Vladimir Borisovich Kramnik is a Russian chess grandmaster. He was the Classical World Chess Champion from 2000 to 2006, and the undisputed World Chess Champion from 2006 to 2007...
in London when he won the World Chess Championship
World Chess Championship
The World Chess Championship is played to determine the World Champion in the board game chess. Men and women of any age are eligible to contest this title....
from Garry Kasparov
Garry Kasparov
Garry Kimovich Kasparov is a Russian chess grandmaster, a former World Chess Champion, writer, political activist, and one of the greatest chess players of all time....
. He also played in several backgammon world championships.
In 1977 he married Phyllis Neill. The marriage produced a son and three daughters. Rodd died of cancer
Cancer
Cancer , known medically as a malignant neoplasm, is a large group of different diseases, all involving unregulated cell growth. In cancer, cells divide and grow uncontrollably, forming malignant tumors, and invade nearby parts of the body. The cancer may also spread to more distant parts of the...
in London, aged 71. Upon his death the title passed to his son, James Rodd, 4th Baron Rennell.