[citation needed] Lord Mahon was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Grenadier Guards on 5 January 1901,[2] and went with his battalion to serve in South Africa during the Second Boer War.

Following the end of this war in June 1902, he returned with a large contingent of men from the guards regiments on board the SS Lake Michigan, which arrived in Southampton in October 1902.

In 1924 he was appointed Civil Lord of the Admiralty under Stanley Baldwin, a post he held until the Conservatives lost power in 1929.

When Neville Chamberlain became Prime Minister in May 1937 Stanhope was made President of the Board of Education, and in February 1938 he also succeeded Edward Wood, 3rd Viscount Halifax, as Leader of the House of Lords.

[6] This publication accused these men of failing to prepare Britain for the looming war, and of appeasing Nazi Germany during the 1930s.