Ronald Tree

Arthur Ronald Lambert Field Tree (26 September 1897 – 14 July 1976) was a British Conservative Party politician, journalist and investor who served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for the Harborough constituency in Leicestershire from 1933 to 1945. He later established the Sandy Lane resort in Barbados. Biography Tree's American-born father, Arthur Tree, was an English gentleman of leisure, self-identifying as a 'horse breeder and farmer' and son of Lambert Tree, a former U.S. minister to Russia. His mother, Ethel Field, was a daughter of Marshall Field, a co-founder of Marshall Field's department store in Chicago, Illinois. Born in Eastbourne, he was educated at Winchester College in England. Both sides of the family brought great wealth to the family and even though his parents divorced, Ronald and his father continued to enjoy a life of great luxury, not least Arthur's yacht 'The Adventuress'. Two months after his parents divorced in 1901, Tree's mother married her lover, Capt. David Beatty, the future 1st Earl Beatty and First Sea Lord. His half-siblings were David Beatty, 2nd Earl Beatty, and the Hon Peter Beatty; he also had two full siblings, both of whom died in infancy. After the divorce, he remained with his father at Ashorne Hill House, Warwickshire, as the court had given Arthur custody of Ronald. There he was tutored by a convent girl from Cork in Ireland, his governess Kate Walsh, who was also Arthur's partner, the mother of six further half-siblings of Ronald; Dennis (1898–1969), Kathleen (1901–1975), Patrick (1905–1991), James, Gerald and Elizabeth Waring (1914–1991). Arthur and Kate were never married and while Ronald grew up with them at Ashorne Hill, he would have had little or no contact with a Catholic, half-Irish and illegitimate family after Arthur's death in 1914, when Ronald was already at the cusp of adulthood. Dennis, Kathleen and Patrick all had issue including notable architect, Michael Blower.