George Grantham Bain Collection (Library of Congress) · Public domain

Philip Sassoon entered Parliament in 1912 as its youngest member and spent nearly three decades as a Conservative MP, serving as private secretary to Field Marshal Douglas Haig during the First World War and later as Under-Secretary of State for Air, where he championed the growth of British aviation. He was as well known for his cultural patronage as for politics — chairing the National Gallery's trustees, collecting works including those of John Singer Sargent, and building Port Lympne and remodeling Trent Park into showcases of his aesthetic taste that drew the era's political and artistic figures alike.