John Loder, 2nd Baron Wakehurst

Captain John de Vere Loder, 2nd Baron Wakehurst, KG, GCMG (February 5 1895 – October 30 1970) was a British Conservative politician and administrator. The only son of Gerald Walter Erskine Loder, 1st Baron Wakehurst, he was born in London and educated at Eton. Although intending to go to Cambridge University, Loder was instead commissioned into the 4th Battalion of the Royal Sussex Regiment, and later joined the Intelligence Corps, seeing service throughout the First World War in Gallipoli, Egypt and Palestine. For his services, he was mentioned in dispatches, and left the British Army in 1919 with the rank of Captain.

After working as a clerk in the Foreign Office for two years, Loder was elected Conservative Member of Parliament for Leicester East in 1924, a seat he held until being defeated in the 1929 General Election. Two years later, he returned to the House of Commons as member for Lewes, and represented this constituency until succeeding his father as second Baron Wakehurst in 1936. The following year, he was appointed Governor of New South Wales and made a KCMG.

After returning from Australia in 1946, Lord Wakehurst succeeded Earl Granville six years later as Governor of Northern Ireland. He was made a Knight of the Garter in 1962, and finally retired from office in 1964.

Lord Wakehurst was Lord Prior of the Order of St John of Jerusalem from 1948 to 1969. In 1920, he married Margaret Tennant, daughter of Sir Charles Tennant, by whom he had four children. He died in 1970.