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Arthur Ronald Nall Nall-Cain, 2nd Baron Brocket (4 August 1904 – 24 March 1967) was a Conservative Party politician in the United Kingdom.

Born into a millionaire brewing family, Nall-Cain was educated at Eton College and Oxford University, where he captained the golf team. He became a barrister and a Hertfordshire County Councillor. He was elected as Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) for Liverpool Wavertree at a by-election in 1931,^[1] and was a close associate of Neville Chamberlain. The title of Baron Brocket had been created for his father Charles Nall-Cain, a baronet and Justice of the Peace in 1933. Arthur Nall-Cain succeeded a year later and was elevated to the House of Lords.

Brocket inherited two grand houses: Brocket Hall in Hertfordshire and Bramshill Park, in Hampshire. In the 1930s, he bought the Knoydart estate and became an infamous^[2] absentee landlord, opposing the rights of crofters and dismissing and evicting workers, preferring the estate for shooting and fishing. He eventually owned 13,000 acres (53 km²) in England and 62,000 in Scotland. His homes were used for entertaining supporters of Germany and Brocket became a committed member of the Anglo-German Fellowship, and known in society as a Nazi sympathiser.^[3]

So identified was Brocket with the cause of Germany that he attended Hitler's 50th birthday celebration^[4] and was a close friend of Joachim von Ribbentrop. According to Neville Chamberlain, Foreign Secretary the Earl of Halifax used him as a conduit to convey to the leading Nazis the views of the British government.

After the outbreak of World War II, Brocket continued to work for an understanding between Britain and Germany. He urged a negotiated peace settlement and tried to arrange talks with Hitler. He had a contact with Hermann Göring through a Swedish intermediary called Bengt Berg. Brocket worked closely with the historian Arthur Bryant, who shared his views and helped bring the negotiations to the attention of the Foreign Office. However, he was informed that the proposal to grant Germany control over Poland and Czechoslovakia was not acceptable to the British government.

After the war, in 1948, some returning soldiers (the so-called Seven Men of Knoydart) who had fought the Nazis decided to seize a portion of Knoydart - but the land raid failed.^[5] Brocket sold the Knoydart estate shortly afterwards. In 1949, he bought the Carton House estate in Ireland.

Marriage & progeny

In 1927 Brocket married Angela Beatrix Pennyman, younger daughter of Rev. Preb. William Geoffrey Pennyman of Ormesby Hall in Yorkshire.^[6] By his wife he had progeny including:

• Hon. Ronald Charles Manus Nall-Cain (1928–1961), eldest son and heir apparent, who pre-deceased his father, having in 1950 married Elizabeth Mary Stallard, a daughter of R.J. Stallard of Bake House, Petersfield, Hampshire,^[7] by whom he had a son:
  
  • 
    Charles Ronald George Nall-Cain, 3rd Baron Brocket (b. 1952), of Brocket Hall.
  
  


• Hon. David Lawrence Robert Nall-Cain (born 1930), 2nd son, who inherited Carton House from his father. He married Hon. Katherine Elizabeth Palmer, a daughter of William Matthew Palmer, Viscount Wolmer (1912-1942), eldest son and heir apparent of Roundell Palmer, 3rd Earl of Selborne (1887–1971).^[8] In 1977 he sold Carton to the Mallaghan family.^[9]
  


• Elizabeth Angela Veronica Rose Nall-Cain (born 1938), wife of Thomas Taylour, 6th Marquess of Headfort.^[10]
  

References