Wyndham Portal , 1st Viscount Portal Wyndham Raymond Portal , 1st Viscount Portal PC GCMG DSO MVO ( 9 April 1885 – 6 May 1949 ) was a British politician . The eldest son of Sir William Wyndam Portal , 2nd Baronet , and Florence Elizabeth Mary Glyn CBE , daughter of Hon . St Leger Glyn , 2nd son of George Glyn , 1st Baron Wolverton , he was educated at Eton and Christ Church , Oxford . In 1909 he married Lady Louise Rosemary Kathleen Virginia Cairns , MBE , only child of Arthur Cairns , 2nd Earl Cairns . He was commissioned into the Hampshire Yeomanry in 1903 , was promoted Lieutenant in 1905 , and transferred to the 9th Lancers later the same year . He transferred to the 1st Life Guards as a Second Lieutenant in 1908 and was promoted Lieutenant again later the same year , but left the Army in 1911 . He rejoined the Hampshire Yeomanry in 1914 and served in World War I . He was promoted Captain in 1914 while serving as adjutant of the Royal 1st Devon Yeomanry . Transferring back to the Life Guards ( Special Reserve ) in 1915 , he was promoted Lieutenant - Colonel in 1916 when he took command of the Household Battalion . In 1917 he was awarded the Distinguished Service Order and appointed a Member of the Royal Victorian Order ( MVO ) . He relinquished command of the battalion in 1918 and reverted to the rank of Captain , but was soon promoted Major and attached to the Machine Gun Corps as a battalion commander , again with the rank of Lieutenant - Colonel . He resigned his commission in 1919 . Returning to civilian life , he became chairman of the Portal family ' s banknote paper mill company in Laverstoke , Portals Limited , in 1919 which had manufactured banknote paper for the Bank of England since 1724 . and became the company ' s chairman when his father died in 1931 . In 1936 , he was one of the main investors in J . Arthur Rank ' s General Cinema Finance Corporation , the company which one year later would become the British film industry ' s most important company , The Rank Organisation . He became General Cinema Finance Corporation ' s chairman , and worked very closely with J . Arthur Rank for many years . In 1935 he was made chairman of the Bacon Development Board , and in April 1939 he was made was regional commissioner for Wales under the Civil Defence Scheme . In 1940 he became the chairman of the Coal Production Council , and he served in government as Additional Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Supply from 1940 – 1942 , and as Minister of Works and Planning from 1942 – 1944 . After the war , in 1945 , he became the last chairman of the Great Western Railway , and Lord Lieutenant of Hampshire from 1947 . In 1935 he accepted the chairmanship of the British Olympic Association and thus led the British team in the 1936 Olympic games in Berlin . That experience made him the perfect president of the 1948 Olympic Games in London . Portal succeeded to his father ' s baronetcy in 1931 . In 1935 he was raised to the peerage as Baron Portal , of Laverstoke . He was appointed a Privy Counsellor in 1942 , created Viscount Portal in 1945 and awarded the GCMG in 1949 . He was succeeded to the Baronetcy only by his uncle , Sir Spencer John Portal .