Background
Long was the younger son of Walter Long, 1st Viscount Long, by Lady Dorothy Blanche, daughter of Richard Boyle, 9th Earl of Cork.
Long was the younger son of Walter Long, 1st Viscount Long, by Lady Dorothy Blanche, daughter of Richard Boyle, 9th Earl of Cork.
He was educated at Harrow School.
2644, meeting at Melksham. Later he also joined the Lodge of Assistance Number. 2773, meeting in central London.
He became a Justice of the Peace in 1923.
He was re-elected at the 1929 general election, but stood down at the 1931 election. Long served in World War I, when he was Mentioned in dispatches.
Between the wars he reached the rank of Major in the part-time Royal Wiltshire Yeomanry. He served again in World World War II, becoming Commander of 329 Battery in 32nd Searchlight Regiment, Royal Artillery (7th City of London) in 1941, based at Carlton Hall near Saxmundham, Suffolk.
He was asked to resign in 1942.
Postwar he became Honorary Colonel of 604 Searchlight Regiment, Royal Artillery (Royal Fusiliers). Prior to this he had been generally known as "Major Eric Long". In 1946 he was appointed Deputy Lieutenant of Wiltshire.
Lord Long married Gwendoline Hague-Cook in 1916, and they had four children:
Walter Reginald Basil Long, born 13 December 1918, served in World World War II as Lieutenant, Royal Artillery, drowned on active service in Greece, 28 April 1941.
Noreen Long, born 21 January 1921, married Major John Cairns Bartholomew, Royal Wiltshire Yeomanry. Richard Gerald Long, born 29 January 1929, who succeeded his father as 4th Viscount Long
John Hume Long, born 4 July 1930.
Viscount Long died at Bath in Somerset 12 January 1967 aged 74 and is buried in the family vault at West Ashton, Wiltshire. According to his obituary in The Times in January 1967, he once described the Socialists as "dangerous beasts".
When women peers were introduced into the House of Lords he said: "I will of course speak to them if they thrust their presence in my face, but otherwise I will do my best to overlook them".
He said of women that they had "not a clue" about politics.
Quotations: "I will of course speak to them if they thrust their presence in my face, but otherwise I will do my best to overlook them".
34th United Kingdom Parliament. 35th United Kingdom Parliament]
Long was elected to the House of Commons as Member of Parliament (Member of Parliament) for Westbury at a by-election in 1927, following the death of the sitting Conservative Member of Parliament Walter William Shaw.