Background
Julian Mond was the younger son of Henry Mond, 2nd Baron Melchett and Gwen Wilson.
Julian Mond was the younger son of Henry Mond, 2nd Baron Melchett and Gwen Wilson.
He was educated at Eton and rather than going to university joined the Fleet Air Arm in 1942.
Here he served in the Atlantic and on the Russian convoys. After leaving the armed forces, Melchett joined Air Contractors Limited, a subsidiary of the merchant bank M. Samuel & Company A year later in 1948, supported by the bank, he founded a farming company based in Norfolk, British Field Products Limited, which specialised in grass-drying and animal feedstuffs.
Melchett soon afterwards joined the merchant bankers M. Samuel & Company
This company merged with Philip Hill, Higginson and Erlanger Limited to form Hill Samuel & Company Limited and Melchett became director in charge of the banking and overseas departments.
In 1966 Harold Wilson asked him to be chairman of a committee to plan the nationalization of the British steel industry, and from that time until his death he was effectively the chairman of what became the British Steel Corporation. This was formed from fourteen major iron and steel companies and other smaller ones who together employed more than a quarter of a million workers.
Melchett married Sonia Elizabeth Graham in 1947.
They built a villa, Casa Melchett, near Formentor in Majorca and took family holidays there. Lord Melchett died while on holiday there in June 1973 and was buried in the family mausoleum in Street Pancras cemetery, Finchley. A memorial service was held for him in Westminster Abbey.
His estate was valued at slightly over £310,000.
He was also a director of the Guardian Assurance Company and of the Anglo-American Shipping Company Limited. He was an adviser to the British Transport Docks Board, a member of the council of administration of the Malta Dockyard and on the councils of the Confederation of British Industry and the National Economic Development Council.