Charles Arthur Mander

Sir Charles Arthur Mander, 2nd Baronet JP, DL, TD (25 June 1884 – 25 January 1951) was a public servant, philanthropist, and manufacturer, as managing director of Mander Brothers, the family paint, varnish and inks business established in 1773.

Charles Arthur Mander, of Kilsall Hall, Tong, Shropshire, was the elder son of Charles Tertius by Mary Le Mesurier, daughter of Henry Nicholas Paint, a Member of the Dominion Parliament of Canada. He was educated at Hillbrow School in Rugby, Eton College and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he read Natural Sciences. He shot in the English rifle team, and was in the winning eight for the Elcho Shield while still at Cambridge.

He served as a major in the Staffordshire Yeomanry (Queen's Own Royal Regiment) in World War I, attached to the Yeomanry Mounted Division in the Sinai and Palestine Campaign. He was wounded in the Third Battle of Gaza at Beersheba in 1917, and following the decisive battle of Megiddo entered Damascus in triumph with General Allenby. Extracts from his lively journals describing one of the last great cavalry campaigns were published in Varnished Leaves (2004).

He was twice Mayor of Wolverhampton and chairman of the Borough finance committee for a generation, and was awarded the honorary freedom of the borough. He was an active industrialist, when Mander Brothers was progressive in labour relations, and was the first company in Britain to introduce the 40-hour week.

He served on over 65 committees and organisations at one time, was in demand as a public speaker on both sides of the Atlantic, and chaired some of the first radio discussion programmes. Among many positions, he was Vice-Chairman of the National Savings Committee and President of Rotary International for Britain and Ireland. In the US, he was made Chief Red Crow, an honorary title of the Blackfoot tribe in Montana, where he gave the dedication address of the Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park, the first national park to be dedicated to world peace, in June 1932.

He married Monica, daughter of George Harding Neame, of Kent and London, by whom he had three children.

He was succeeded in the baronetcy by his only son, Charles Marcus Mander (1921–2006).