Guinness, Walter Edward (1880–1944), 1st Baron Moyne , soldier, politician, traveller, and anthropologist, was born 29 March 1880 in Dublin, third son of Edward Cecil Guinness (qv), 1st earl of Iveagh, and Adelaide Maria Guinness, a cousin. He was educated at Eton, where he displayed a keen interest in the sciences (especially biology) and considerable athletic prowess. Forsaking an intention to enter Oxford University, he joined the Suffolk Yeomanry and served in the second Boer war (1899–1902), where he was wounded and mentioned in dispatches. On return from South Africa he entered politics, unsuccessfully contesting Stowmarket in the 1906 general election as a conservative candidate. In the following year he became MP for Bury St Edmunds, holding the seat until 1931; he was also elected as a member of the London county council (1907–10). He interrupted his career yet again at the outbreak of the first world war and, rejoining the Suffolk Yeomanry, served in Gallipoli and Egypt. By the end of the war he was a lieutenant-colonel, three times mentioned in dispatches, with the DSO (1917) and bar (1918).
In the immediate postwar years he devoted himself to his political career, and his work was soon rewarded with important appointments: under-secretary of state for war (1922) and financial secretary at the treasury (1923). He served for a second time at the treasury (1924–5) under Winston Churchill, then chancellor of the exchequer. Sworn of the privy council (1924), he entered the cabinet (November 1925) as minister of agriculture and fisheries. After the defeat of the conservatives in 1929 general election, Guinness gradually withdrew from the political scene, retiring from his parliamentary seat in 1931. He was raised to the peerage in 1932 as Baron Moyne of Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk.
Always a keen traveller, during the following years he made several expeditions in search of biological specimens and archaeological material. He travelled twice to New Guinea and also went to Greenland and the Bay Islands near Honduras. These voyages were vividly described in his books Walkabout (1936) and Atlantic circle (1938). He still maintained a political profile, however, serving in several different capacities including financial commissioner to Kenya (1932) and chairman of the West India royal commission (1938–9). At the outbreak of the second world war he worked as chairman of the Polish Relief Fund before being appointed as joint parliamentary secretary at the ministry of agriculture on the formation of the Churchill government (1940). In 1941 he became secretary of state for the colonies and leader of the house of lords. Appointed deputy minister of state in Cairo (August 1942), he became minister resident in the Middle East in January 1944. On 6 November 1944 he was assassinated in Cairo by members of the ‘Stern gang’, the Jewish terrorist group based in Palestine.
He married (1903) Lady Evelyn Hilda Stuart Erskine, daughter of the 14th earl of Buchan; they had two sons and one daughter.