Lord Clifden was therefore succeeded by his second son, the seventh Viscount. He sat as a Liberal in the House of Lords and served as a Lord-in-waiting (government whip) from 1940 to 1945 in the war-time coalition of Winston Churchill. On the death of his younger brother, the eighth Viscount, the barony and viscountcy of Clifden and barony of Robartes became extinct, while he was succeeded in the barony of Mendip according to the special remainder by his distant relative the sixth Earl of Normanton.