Julius Elias, 1st Viscount Southwood

Julius Elias 1st Viscount Southwold
Born	Julius Salter Elias 5 January 1873 Birmingham, England
Died	10 April 1946 (aged 73) Highgate, London, England
Occupation	Newspaper proprietor, politician
Employer	Odhams Bros
Political party	Labour
Spouse(s)	Alice Louise Collard

Memorial fountain in the churchyard of St James's Church, Piccadilly

Julius Salter Elias, 1st Viscount Southwood (5 January 1873 – 10 April 1946), was a British newspaper proprietor and Labour politician. He rose from humble origins to become head of Odhams Press, Britain's largest newspaper and printing combine.

Elias was born in Birmingham, the youngest of the seven children^[1] of David Elias,^[2] a Whitby a jet salesman. After moving to London where his father had set up a newspaper business, Elias began delivering newspapers in Hammersmith. He left school at the age of 13 to take up a job as a junior clerk at Odhams Bros, then a small printing firm. He worked his way up to become managing director and eventually chairman of the firm, which after a merger with John Bull in 1920 took the name Odhams Press Ltd. He was also managing director and chairman of the company that controlled the Illustrated London News.^[1] Elias was raised to the peerage as Baron Southwood, of Fernhurst in the County of Sussex, in 1937.^[3] In 1944 he was appointed Chief Whip of the Labour Party in the House of Lords, which he remained until the following year. In January 1946 he was made Viscount Southwood, of Fernhurst in the County of Sussex.^[4]

Lord Southwood married Alice Louise Collard, daughter of Charles Stone Collard, in 1906.^[2] They had no children. He died from a heart attack at his Highgate home in April 1946, aged 73. The titles died with him.^[1]

References

1. Obituary in The Glasgow Herald, 10 April 1946
2. thepeerage.com Julius Salter Elias, 1st Viscount Southwood
3. The London Gazette: no. 34410. p. 4010. 22 June 1937.
4. The London Gazette: no. 37461. p. 863. 8 February 1946.

External links

• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by the Viscount Southwood