James Baldwin-Webb

Colonel James Baldwin-Webb TD (born 1894 – died 18 September 1940) was a British Army officer, businessman, and Conservative Party politician who served in the House of Commons as a Member of Parliament (MP) for The Wrekin from 1931 to his death in 1940.

He was the only son of James Bertram Webb and his wife Elizabeth Anne Webb (née Baldwin), of Wylde Green, Sutton Coldfield, Warwickshire. He was educated privately.

After leaving school, Baldwin-Webb worked in his maternal grandmother's family firm of Messrs Baldwin's(Birmingham) Ltd, then a firm of hardware merchants. He then joined the local staff of Lloyds Bank in Birmingham, where he passed all major banking examinations, but left the company when he joined the army at the outbreak of World War I in August 1914.

After the war, he returned to Baldwin's and worked as a representative, later becoming Managing Director. He was credited with guiding the firm in the 1920s to diversify into a major builders' merchants.

He later became a member of two City of London livery companies, the Worshipful Company of Coachmakers and Coach Harness Makers and of Pattenmakers.

At the outbreak of World War I, Baldwin-Webb enlisted in a Territorial Army (TA) unit, the 46th North Midland Divisional Train of the Royal Army Service Corps (RASC), becoming a commissioned officer in a few weeks.

From 1915 he served on the Western Front, took part in the Battle of the Somme attached to an artillery trench mortar battery, and later served on the staff of the Third and Fourth Armies of the British Expeditionary Force. As a result of his service in France, he was created a Chevalier of the Ordre du Mérite Agricole by the French Government in 1919.

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