Jean, Baroness Denham 1931-2024

 Jean, Baroness Denham, who died 19 November, 2024, aged 93, was the widow of the 2nd Baron Denham.

The former Jean McCorquodale, scion of that landed gentry family, was born 4 May, 1931, daughter of Major Kenneth McCorquodale, MC (1894-1976), of Fambridge Hall, White Notley, co Essex, and his wife the former Ellen Viva Martin (1895-1987); and married 14 February, 1956, Bertram Stanley Mitford Bowyer, 2nd Baron Denham, KBE, PC (born 3 Oct, 1927), son of the 1st Baron Denham, MC (1886-1948), and his wife the former Hon Daphne Freeman-Mitford (1895-1996), daughter of the 1st Baron Redesdale, GCVO, KCB (1837-1916).

Her husband had succeeded as 2nd Baron Denham, 30 November, 1948, on the death of his father, a long-serving Conservative MP and junior minister whose peerage in 1937 had been preceded in 1933 by a baronetcy to which Bertie Denham added a second baronetcy, 27 Sept, 1950, inherited from a kinsman. 

Lord Denham was elected to the House of Lords in 1999, and at his retirement from upper house in 2021 at the age of 93, he was the longest-serving peer, having sat in the upper house since 1949. Such was his longevity, that he was also the last man alive to have served in Harold Macmillan’s government. He died 1 December, 2021.

Jean, Baroness Denham was a sister of Alastair McCorquodale (1925-2009), who represented Britain in athletics at the 1948 Olympic Games, and she was an aunt of Neil McCorquodale (born 1951), who married Lady Sarah Spencer, sister of Diana, Princess of Wales.

Lady Denham is survived by three sons, Richard, 3rd Baron (born 8 Feb, 1959), the Hon Henry Bowyer (born 9 May, 1963), and the Hon George Bowyer (born 13 Dec, 1964), and a daughter, the Hon Jocelyn (born 18 Oct, 1957),

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